A Dream

Thou who hast follow'd far with eyes of love      The shy and virgin sights of Spring to-day,     Sad soul, what dost thou in this happy grove?      Hast thou no pipe to touch, no strain to play,     Where Nature smiles so fair and seems to ask a lay?     Ah! she needs none! she is too beautiful.      How should I sing her? for my heart would tire,     Seeking a lovelier verse each time to cull,      In striving still to pitch my music higher:     Lovelier than any muse is she who gives the fire!     No impulse I beseech; my strains are vile:      To escape thee, Nature, restless here I rove.     Look not so sweet on me, avert thy smile!      O cease at length this fever'd breast to move!     I have loved thee in vain; I cannot speak my love.     Here sense with apathy seems gently wed:      The gloom is starr'd with flowers; the unseen trees     Spread thick and softly real above my head;      And the far birds add music to the peace,     In this dark place of sleep, where whispers never cease.     Hush, then, my pipe; vain is thy passion here;      Vain is the burning bosom of desire!     Forever hush'd, let me this silence hear,      As a sad Muse in the melodious choir     Hushes her voice, to catch the happier voices by her.     Deep-shaded will I lie, and deeper yet      In night, where not a leaf its neighbour knows;     Forget the shining of the stars, forget      The vernal visitation of the rose;     And, far from all delights, prepare my heart's repose.     Strive how I may, I cannot slumber so:      Still burns that sleepless beauty on the mind;     Still insupportable those visions glow;      And hark! my spirit's aspirations find     An answer in the leaves, a warning on the wind.     'O crave not silence thou! too soon, too sure,      Shall Autumn come, and through these branches weep:     Soon birds shall cease, and flowers no more endure;      And thou beneath the mould unwilling creep,     And silent soon shalt be in that eternal sleep.     'Green still it is, where that fair goddess strays;      Then follow, till around thee all be sere.     Lose not a vision of her passing face;      Nor miss the sound of her soft robes, that here     Sweep over the wet leaves of the fast-falling year.'