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THE DREAM,

1.

OUR life is twofold; Sleep hath its own world,
A boundary between the things misnamed
Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world,
And a wide realm of wild reality,

And dreams in their developement have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They take a weight from off our waking toils,
They do divide our being; they become
A portion of ourselves as of our time,
And look like heralds of eternity;

They pass like spirits of the past,-they speak
Like sybils of the future; they have power-
The tyranny of pleasure and of pain;
They make us what we were not-what they will,
And shake us with the vision that's gone by,
The dread of vanish'd shadows-Are they so?
Is not the past all shadow? What are they?
Creations of the mind?-The mind can make
Substance, and people planets of its own
With beings brighter than have been, and give
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.

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I would recall a vision which I dream'd
Perchance in sleep-for in itself a thought,
A slumbering thought, is capable of years,
And curdles a long life into one hour.

II.

I saw two beings in the hues of youth
Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,
Green and of mild declivity, the last
As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such,
Save that there was no sea to lave its base,
But a most living landscape, and the wave
Of woods and cornfields, and the abodes of men
Scattered at intervals, and wreathing smoke
Arising from such rustic roofs;-the hill
Was crown'd with a peculiar diadem
Of trees, in circular array, so fix'd,
Not by the sport of nature, but of man:
These two, a maiden and a youth, were there
Gazing-the one on all that was beneath
Fair as herself-but the boy gazed on her;
And both were young, and one was beautiful:
And both were young-yet not alike in youth.
As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge
The maid was on the eve of womanhood;
The boy had fewer summers, but his heart
Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye
There was but one beloved face on earth,
And that was shining on him; he had look'd
Upon it till it could not pass away;
He had no breath, no being, but in her's;
She was his voice; he did not speak to her,
But trembled on her words; she was his sight,
For his eye followed her's, and saw with her's.
Which coloured all his objects:-he had ceased
To live within himself; she was his life,

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THE DREAM,

The ocean to the river of his thoughts,
Which terminated all: upon a tone,

A touch of her's, his blood would ebb and flow,
And his cheek change tempestuously-his heart
Unknowing of its cause of agony.

But she in these fond feelings had no share:
Her sighs were not for him; to her he was
Even as a brother-but no more; 'twas much,
For brotherless she was, save in the name
Her infant friendship had bestowed on him;
Herself the solitary scion left

Of a time-honoured race.-It was a name
Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not-
and why?

Time taught him a deep answer-when she loved
Another; even now she loved another,
And on the summit of that hill she stood
Looking afar if yet her lover's steed
Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew.

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III.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
There was an ancient mansion, and before
Its walls there was a steed caparisoned:
Within an antique Oratory stood

The Boy of whom I spake;-he was alone,
And pale, and pacing to and fro; anon

He sate him down, and seized a pen, and traced
Words which I could not guess of; then he lean'd
His bow'd head on his hands, and shook as 'twere
With a convulsion-then arose again,

And with his teeth and quivering hands did tear
What he had written, but he shed no tears.
And he did calm himself, and fix his brow
Into a kind of quiet; as he paused,
The Lady of his love re-entered there,

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She was serene and smiling then and yet
She knew she was by him beloved, she knew,
For quickly comes such knowledge, that his heart
Was darken'd with her shadow, and she saw
That he was wretched, but she saw not all.
He rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp
He took her hand; a moment o'er his face
A tablet of unutterable thoughts

Was traced, and then it faded, as it came;
He dropped the hand he held, and with slow steps
Retired, but not as bidding her adieu,

For they did part with mutual smiles; he pass'd
From out the massy gate of that old hall,
And mounting on his steed he went his way;
And ne'er repassed that hoary threshold more.

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IV.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The boy was sprung to manhood: in the wilds
Of fiery climes he made himself a home,
And his soul drank their sunbeams; he was girt
With strange and dusky aspects; he was not
Himself like what he had been; on the sea
And on the shore he was a wanderer;
There was a mass of many images
Crowded like waves upon me, but he was
A part of all; and in the last he lay
Reposing from the noon-tide sultriness,
Couched among fallen columns, in the shade
Of ruin'd walls that had survived the names
Of those who rear'd them; by his sleeping side
Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds
Were fastened near a fountain; and a man
Clad in a flowing garb did watch the while,
While many of his tribe slumber'd arouud:
And they were canopied by the blue sky,

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THE DREAM.

So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful,
That God alone was to be seen in Heaven.

V.

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A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The lady of his love was wed with one
Who did not love her better;—in her home,
A thousand leagues from his, her native home,
She dwelt, begirt with growing Infancy,
Daughters and sons of Beauty, but behold!
Upon her face there was the tint of grief,
The settled shadow of an inward strife,
And an unquiet drooping of the eye

As if its lid were charged with unshed tears.
What could her grief be?—she had all she loved,
And he who had so loved her was not there
To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish,
Orill-repress'd affliction, her pure thoughts.
What could her grief be?-she had loved him not
Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved,
Nor could he be a part of that which prey'd
Upon her mind-a spectre of the past.

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VI.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.-
The wanderer was return'd.-I saw him stand
Before an altar-with a gentle bride;

Her face was fair, but was not that which made
The starlight of his boyhood;-as he stood
Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came
The self-same aspect, and the quivering shock
That in the antique Oratory shook
His bosom in its solitude; and then-
As in that hour-a moment o'er his face
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