Classic Poem

'Twas buried deep:
I did not weep;
I had forgot.
But Love did not forget to keep
What Love had wrought;
And when you spake, —
Wan, half awake,
Dim as a daylight flame,
Up from my Memory's oubliette , the old Dream softly came.

I cried, " O shrunken form!
O wrinkled mummy face!
Once thou wert rosy-warm,
And fair, and full of grace;
Now art a thing to gibe at in the sun,
To mock and shun,
Go back and dream in thy cold dwelling-place,
Go back and sleep.
Down in thy dungeon deep!
Go back, " I cried, " for all my dreams are done! "

Sheeted in shame,
With chin-clothes of despair,
Shambling along it came,
All tottering and lame,
Up to the upper air;
And, as a soul that perishes with drouth
Might stoop to drink
At a fountain's brink
With famished mouth,
So knelt and drank it of your beauty there.

— O wonder! — as it gazed it grew
Like a faint rose refreshed with dew.
Most sweet and fresh,
Spirit and flesh,
With leaping heart, and eyes of blue;
And in its mouth, and brow, and hair,
Your mouth, and brow, and hair I knew;
And suddenly I was aware
That ye were one, not two:
You were the Dream of all things fair,
You were my Dream, my Dream was you;
You were the answer to my prayers,
You were my Dream of Love come true.