To Imagination

When weary with the long day's care,

And earthly change from pain to pain,

And lost, and ready to despair,

Thy kind voice calls me back again -

O my true friend, I am not lone

While thou canst speak with such a tone!

So hopeless is the world without,

The world within I doubly prize;

Thy world where guile and hate and doubt

And cold suspicion never rise;

Where thou and I and Liberty

Have undisputed sovereignty.

What matters it that all around

Danger and grief and darkness lie,

If but within our bosom's bound

We hold a bright unsullied sky,

Warm with ten thousand mingled rays

Of suns that know no winter days?

Reason indeed may oft complain

For Nature's sad reality,

And tell the suffering heart how vain

Its cherished dreams must always be;

And Truth may rudely trample down

The flowers of Fancy newly blown.

But thou art ever there to bring

The hovering visions back and breathe

New glories o'er the blighted spring

And call a lovelier life from death,

And whisper with a voice divine

Of real worlds as bright as thine.

I trust not to thy phantom bliss,

Yet still in evening's quiet hour

With never-failing thankfulness

I welcome thee, benignant power,

Sure solacer of human care

And brighter hope when hope despairs.