Classic Poem

A DREAM .

I HAD a dream, one sad and restless night,
And the strange vision haunts my memory still:
'Twas of a Silver Chamber, wanly bright,
Shut from the world, and desolate, and chill;
Whilst on my face fell icy drops of light,
Like to the wintry waters of a rill

Methought, upon a silver-covered bed,
Bowed down with sorrow and with pain, I lay,
And silver curtains, drooping o'er my head,
Smote my hot eye-balls with a sickly ray;
I waited thus, in vague and silent dread,
For the blest dawning of another day.

At length I saw, right through the silver door,
A little Human Form come gently in,
From whose mild eyes a lambent light did pour,
As from a lamp that calmly burned within;
But as the Shape approached me, more and more
I felt the weight and shadow of my sin.

It came, and, looking in the Spirit-face,
I knew its lineaments; She had been one
Of my heart's hopes, as full of love and grace
As e'er an earthly sunlight shone upon;
But Death had taken her to a holier place,
And my chief joy of home and hearth was gone.

" Father, " — thus spake her silver-sounding tongue —
" I saw thy state, I heard thy weary sigh,
And I have come to thee, but not for long,
Commissioned from my happy home on high,
To warn and soothe thee, ere the angel-throng
Recall me to my duties in the sky.

" Alas! I find thee feeble and forlorn,
Wasted and sick, and sore oppressed with woe!
Is it not time that thou shouldst learn to scorn
All worthless things that tempt thee here below, —
Seek inward peace, and hail Heaven's matchless morn,
When thou art called to gird thy loins and go?

" What are to thee, and to thy inner mind,
The low pursuits and pleasures of the earth; —
The Circean charms which strike thy reason blind,
The passionate frenzy, and the foolish mirth,
When thou hast other gifts, which God designed
To do good work, and win a higher birth?

" Strive upward, with an ever upward gaze,
As all good men — all patient men — have striven;
Strive to evangelise thy later days,
Outlive the past, and feel thyself forgiven;
That I may hear thy hopeful voice of praise
Resounding in the radiant halls of Heaven! "

Thus spake, in syllables that left perfume,
My lost Delight, my Angel-Child to me!
My soul at once cast off its pall of gloom;
Up from my heart my tears flowed fast and free:
Oh! may that vision of the Silver Room
Prove Mercy's beacon-light of love to me!