To M. S. G.

When I dream that you love me, you'll surely forgive;

Extend not your anger to sleep;

For in visions alone your affection can live;

I rise, and it leaves me to weep.

Then, Morpheus! envelop my faculties fast,

Shed o'er me your languor benign;

Should the dream of to-night but resemble the last,

What rapture celestial is mine!

They tell us that slumber, the sister of death,

Mortality's emblem is given;

To fate how I long to resign my frail breath,

If this be a foretaste of Heaven!

Ah! frown not, sweet lady, unbend your soft brow,

Nor deem me too happy in this;

If I sin in my dream, I atone for it now,

Thus doom'd, but to gaze upon bliss.

Though in visions, sweet lady, perhaps you may smile,

Oh! think not my penance deficient;

When dreams of your presence my slumbers beguile

To awake, will be torture sufficient.