The Land of Dreams

By Felicia Hemans, 1830

And dreams, in their development, have breath
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts....
They make us what we were not - what they will,
And shake us with the vision that's gone by …
(Byron, 'The Dream', 5- 7, 15- 16)

Oh spirit land, thou land of dreams!
A world thou art of mysterious gleams,
Of startling voices, and sounds at strife -
A world of the dead in the hues of life.

Like a wizard's magic-glass thou art
When the wavy shadows float by, and part -
Visions of aspects, now loved, now strange,
Glimmering and mingling in ceaseless change.

Thou art like a city of the past
With its gorgeous halls into fragments cast,
Amidst whose ruins there glide and play
Familiar forms of the world's today.

Thou art like the depths where the seas have birth,
Rich with the wealth that is lost from earth -
All the sere flowers of our days gone by,
And the buried gems in thy bosom lie.

Yes, thou art like those dim sea-caves,
A realm of treasures, a realm of graves!
And the shapes through thy mysteries that come and go,
Are of beauty and terror, of power and woe.

But for me, oh thou picture-land of sleep,
Thou art all one world of affections deep -
And wrung from my heart is each flushing dye
That sweeps o'er thy chambers of imagery.

And thy bowers are fair - even as Eden fair;
All the beloved of my soul are there!
The forms my spirit most pines to see,
The eyes whose love hath been life to me -

They are there, and each blessed voice I hear,
Kindly, and joyous, and silvery clear;
But undertones are in each, that say,
'It is but a dream; it will melt away!'

I walk with sweet friends in the sunset's glow;
I listen to music of long ago;
But one thought, like an omen, breathes faint through the lay -
'It is but a dream; it will melt away!'

I sit by the hearth of my early days;
All the home-faces are met by the blaze,
And the eyes of the mother shine soft, yet say,
'It is but a dream; it will melt away!'

And away, like a flower's passing breath, 'tis gone,
And I wake more sadly, more deeply lone -
Oh, a haunted heart is a weight to bear!
Bright faces, kind voices, where are ye, where?

Shadow not forth, oh thou land of dreams,
The past, as it fled by my own blue streams!
Make not my spirit within me burn
For the scenes and the hours that may ne'er return!

Call out from the future thy visions bright,
From the world o'er the grave, take thy solemn light,
And oh! with the loved, whom no more I see,
Show me my home as it yet may be!

As it yet may be in some purer sphere -
No cloud, no parting, no sleepless fear;
So my soul may bear on through the long, long day,
Till I go where the beautiful melts not away!

Text source: Wu CD