Classic Poem

There are no dreams beyond the tomb!
The night of dreams is o'er;
'Tis only here they go and come,
On this dull, shadowy shore.

When we arise from off this restless couch
Of weariness and pain,
When death awakes us with his stony touch
Never to sleep again;

Then shadows vanish; the invisible
Rises before our view;
On every side comes up the real,
The certain, and the true.

And when the morn of morns shall come,
The resurrection-day,
Then yet more real shall all become,
And shadows pass away.

How true and great that world must be,
How false, how little this!
Man sees not what he seems to see,
He seems not what he is.

Here is the hollow and untrue;
This is the night of dreams;
Thickly o'erspread with mist and dew,
Earth is not what it seems.

Each morn is coming with its light,
To chase each shade and ill,
Then time's vain beauty shall take flight,
Like rainbow from the hill.

And truth returneth from on high;
Gone is the night of dreams,
Gone is the shadow and the lie,—
Earth shall be what it seems.