The Poetical Works of Ernest Christopher Dowson :: :: University of Virginia Library

We have dreamt dreams but now they are long over,
Dreams of a life the other side of death;
Drop down the curtain on the play completed,
The farce of life is finished with the breath.

We have believed the beautiful, false stories,
Fed on the faiths that after childhood fail,
Now to our eyes the universe appeareth
A vessel rudderless without a sail.

Man, in a world but fair in semblance only
Veiling in light its secret of disgust,
Is he not far of all vile things the vilest,
He, the foul spawn of Nature's filthy lust?

Man with his hopes and pitiful illusions,
Is he not pitiful, grotesque, forlorn?
White with desire for that life cannot proffer,
Must we not weep that ever we were born?

Is there one happy? Can there be one happy?
Nay, for the only good we can attain,
Death our dull goal, the senseless sleep for ever
Puts alike end to pleasure and to pain.

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There shall we rest, but shall not ever know it,
Shall not have love nor knowledge, nor delight,
Only shall feel the fevered life fall from us,
Sleepers unwitting in an endless night.