Keep thou thy dreams, intangible and dear
As the blue ether of the utmost sky,—
A dream may lift thy spirit past all fear,
And with the great, may set thy feet on high!
BEFORE THE DAWN
In that one darkest hour, before the dawn is here,
Each soul of us goes sailing, close to the coast of Fear.
There in the windless quiet, from out the folded black,
The things we have forgotten—or would forget—come back.
Old sorrows, long abandoned, or kept with lock and key,
Steal from their prison places to bear us company.
All softly come our little sins—our scarlet sins—and gray,
To keep with us a vigil till breaking of the day.
And there are velvet footsteps; or oft we seem to hear
Light garments brush against the dark; so near—so very near!
Then heavily, as weighed by tears, each haunted moment goes,
For dawn steps down the morning sky, in robes of gray and rose.
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