'DREAMS' POEM BY EDGAR ALLAN POE

Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream! 

My spirit not awak'ning till the beam 

Of an Eternity should bring the morrow. 

Yes! tho' that long dream were of hopeless sorrow, 

'T were better than the cold reality 

Of waking life, to him whose heart must be, 

And hath been still, upon the lovely earth, 

A chaos of deep passion, from his birth. 

But should it be — that dream eternally 

Continuing — as dreams have been to me 

In my young boyhood — should it thus be giv'n, 

'T were folly still to hope for higher Heav'n. 

For I have revell'd, when the sun was bright 

I' the summer sky, in dreams of living light 

And loveliness, — have left my very heart 

In climes of mine imagining, apart 

From mine own home, with beings that have been 

Of mine own thought — what more could I have seen?

'T was once — and only once — and the wild hour 

From my remembrance shall not pass — some pow'r 

Or spell had bound me — 't was the chilly wind 

Came o'er me in the night, and left behind 

Its image on my spirit — or the moon 

Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noon 

Too coldly — or the stars — howe'er it was, 

That dream was as that night-wind — let it pass. 

I have been happy, tho' but in a dream. 

I have been happy — and I love the theme: 

Dreams! In their vivid coloring of life, 

As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife 

Of semblance with reality which brings 

To the delirious eye, more lovely things 

Of Paradise and Love — and all our own! 

Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.