An echo of former smiles or tears,
Wafted to us on the wings of night
From the silent bourne of the vanished years.
A dream is a perished joy, restored
From the mystical regions beyond our ken,
Which we fain would press as a thing adored,
To our breasts, ere it fades and is lost again.
A dream is a buried hope exhumed,
'Tis an iridescent thing of air,
Which mocks at the spirit, by fate entombed