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Songs Old and New

... Collected Edition [by Elizabeth Charles]

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A TRUE DREAM.
  
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201

A TRUE DREAM.

I dreamt we danced in careless glee,
With hearts and footsteps light and free,
That one so dearly loved and I,
As in the childish days gone by
For ever.
I felt her arms around me fold,
I heard her soft laugh as of old;
Her eyes with smiles were brimming o'er—
Eyes we may meet on earth no more
For ever.
Then there came mingling with my dreams
A sense perplexed of loss and change—
An echo dim of time and tears,
Until I said, “How long it seems
Since thus we danced! Is it not strange?
Do you not feel the weight of years?

202

Or dread life's coming shadows cold?
Or mourn to think we must grow old?”
Wondering, she paused a little while,
Then answered, with a radiant smile,
“No! never!”
Wondering, as if to her I told
The customs of some foreign land;
Or spoke a tongue she knew of old,
But could no longer understand,
Till o'er her face that sunshine broke,
And with that radiant smile she spoke
That “Never!”
But not until the dream had fled
I knew the sense of what she said;
Young with immortal truth and love,
Child in the Father's House above
For ever.
We echo back thy words again,
They smite us with no grief or pain;
We journey not towards the night,
But to the breaking of the light,
Together

203

Our life is no poor cisterned store
The lavish years are draining low;
But living streams that, welling o'er,
Fresh from the living Fountain flow
For ever.