University of Virginia Library

No incantation which the outer-sense
In the full glow of waking life perceives,
Rivals the magic by mysterious Night
Evoked, when Dreams, like messengers from heaven
Rise from eternity, and round the soul
Hover and hang, ineffably-sublime;
But mocking language, when it tries to catch
The true expression of their awful power.

And, how religious is the sway of Dreams,
Which are the movers of that secret-world
Where most we suffer, learn, and love,
Building our Being up to moral heights,
Stone after stone, by rising truths advanced
To full experience, and to noble aims.
The tombs of time they open, till the forms,
The faces and the features of our Dead
Lighten with life, and speech, and wonted smiles!
While mem'ry beautifies the Thing it mourns,
And to the Dead a deeper charm imparts
Than their gone life in fullest glory had.
And thus, in visions of the voiceless night,
Apparel'd with that beauty which the mind
Gives to the loved and lovely, when no more,
Rise from their tombs the Forms of fleeted days,
Friends of bright Youth, the fascinating-dear!
Till back returns life's unpolluted dawn;
And down the garden-walk, or cowslipp'd field
Where once he prattled, full of game and glee,
The man, transfigured back to childhood, roves
Tender as tears. So, on the wind-bow'd mast
The sailor-boy in dreams a mother hails,
And hears her blessing o'er his pathway breathed;
Or, pale and gasping, ere his life-drops ebb
For ever, how the Soldier thus depicts
In the soft dream of some remember'd day,
The hands which rear'd him; or the hearts that heaved
With omens, when the charm of tented fields
Seduced him from the sweets of sainted home
And virtue. Dreams are thus half-miracles;
All time they master; and all truths embrace
Which melt the hardest, and our minds affect
With things profounder than our Creed asserts.