By feverish watching for some step beloved:
Free are thy thoughts, an ever-changeful train,
Glancing like dewdrops, and as lightly moved.
Yet now, on billows of strange passion toss’d,
How art thou wilder’d in the cave of sleep!
My gentle child! midst what dim phantoms lost,
Thus in mysterious anguish dost thou weep?
Awake! they sadden me—those early tears,
First gushings of the strong, dark river’s flow,
That must o’ersweep thy soul with coming years,