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The Complete Poems of Christina Rossetti

A variorum edition: Edited, with textual notes and introductions, by R. W. Crump

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A Hopeless Case.

(Nydia.)

All night I dream of that which cannot be:
And early in the morning I awake
My whole heart saddened for a vision's sake.
I in my sleep have joy; but woe is me!
Thro' the long day the shadowy pleasures flee
And are not: wherefore I would gladly take
Some warm and poppied potion that might make
My slumbers long which pass so pleasantly.
And if I slept and never woke again,
But dreamed on with a happy consciousness
Of grass and flowers and perfect rest from pain,
I would leave hope a thousand times found vain,

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And own a twilight solitude doth bless
Shut in from cold and wind and storm of rain.