University of Virginia Library


114

HYPNEROTOMACHIA.

BYTIMES from this my dream I wake
And look on life, as it goes by,
Beneath the wondering, pitying sky,
And pity, too, on men I take;
Yea, fain, to ease my spirit's ache,
To venture out with them I sigh
And to the Gods lift hand, that I
May succour them for sorrow's sake.
Alack! In vain to heaven I sue:
What have they, this with that, to do,
The world, with all its troubled streams
Of strife and turmoil, old and new,
Its things that are, its things that seem,
And I, a dreamer with my dream?