The Poetical Works of John Payne :: :: University of Virginia Library

THERE came a voice to me,
When the sun was like a star,
In the distance far away;
It spoke of worlds afar,
Beyond the sapphire sea,
Beyond the dying day.

Of other worlds it told,
Where Life and Love are one,
In some serener air;
Of shores beyond the sun,
Behind the evening-gold,
Where truth alone is fair;

Where one are thought and deed,
Where wish and will consent,
Where care comes not to blur
The face of fair intent
Nor faith's upspringing seed
Is baulked by falsehood's bur;

Where all our darling dreams,
Which died, whilst yet in leaf,
Shall know a brighter birth,
Where gladness pure from grief,
Where all is what it seems
And heaven unhemmed with earth.

344

II.

Ah, vain, ah vaunting voice,
That wak'st my wounded heart
And mak'st it bleed again!
Yet must I needs rejoice
To hear thy speech, that art
My faded hopes' refrain.

For better, better far
To look and long and sigh
For some ideal thing,
To love some distant star,
Than chase, with churl and king,
Life's ever-changing lie!

Come back, come back to me
And murmur in my ear
Your melodies of yore,
O visions dread and dear,
O hopes of heaven in store,
Of Paradise to be!

For, since in one decay
Both good and ill must meet,
Why then, let run to waste
The dreams that were so sweet?
Why cast the cup away,
If transient its taste?

Since sun and stars and sky,
Since heaven and sea and land
Are mirages of sight,
Which melt, when close at hand,
And all which meets the eye
But visions of the night,

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Why, then, ah, why disdain
Delusions fond and fair,
Delights that do but seem?
Come back, sweet shapes of air,
And make my days again
A dream within a dream.