DREAMS.
Oh! there is a dream of early youth,
And it never comes again;
'Tis a vision of light, of life, and truth,
That flits across the brain:
And love is the theme of that early dream.
So wild, so warm, so new,
That in all our after years I deem,
That early dream we rue.
Oh! there is a dream of maturer years,
More turbulent by far;
'Tis a vision of blood, and of woman's tears,
For the theme of that dream is war:
And we toil in the field of danger and death,
And shout in the battle array,
Till we find that fame is a bodyless breath,
That vanisheth away.
Oh! there is a dream of hoary age,
'Tis a vision of gold in store—
Of sums noted down on the figured page,
To be counted o'er and o'er:
And we fondly trust in our glittering dust,
As a refuge from grief and pain,
Till our limbs are laid on that last dark bed,
Where the wealth of the world is vain.
And is it thus, from man's birth to his grave—
In the path which all are treading?
Is there naught in that long career to save
From remorse and self-upbraiding?
O yes, there's a dream so pure, so bright,
That the being to whom it is given,
Hath bathed in a sea of living light—
And the theme of that dream is Heaven.