I've dreamed of sunsets

Oh, I have dreamed of it a thousand times,

Sleeping and waking, since the torch of thought

Flashed into flame at Revelation's touch,

And filled my spirit with its quenchless fire.

Most envious dreams of innocence and joy

Have haunted me, -- dreams that were born in sin,

Yet swathed in stainless snow. I've dreamed, and dreamed,

Of wondrous trees, crowned with perennial green,

Whose soft still shadows gleamed with golden lamps

Of pensile fruitage, or were flushed with life

Radiant and tuneful when broad flocks of birds

Swept in and out like sheets of living flame.

I've dreamed of aisles tufted with velvet grass,

And bordered with the strange intelligence

Of myriad loving eyes among the flowers,

That watched me with a curious, calm delight,

As rows of wayside cherubim may watch

A new soul, walking into Paradise.

I've dreamed of sunsets when the sun supine

Lay rocking on the ocean like a god,

And threw his weary arms far up the sky,

And with vermilion-tinted fingers toyed

With the long tresses of the evening star.

I've dreamed of dreams more beautiful than all --

Dreams that were music, perfume, vision, bliss, --

Blent and sublimed, till I have stood inwrapped

In the thick essence of an atmosphere

That made me tremble to unclose my eyes

Lest I should look on God. And I have dreamed

Of sinless men and maids, mated in heaven,

Ere yet their souls had sought for beauteous forms

To give them human sense and residence,

Moving through all this realm of choice delights

For ever and for aye; with hands and hearts

Immaculate as light; without a thought

Of evil, and without a name for fear.

Oh, when I wake from happy dreams like these,

To the old consciousness that I must die,

To the old presence of a guilty heart,

To the old fear that haunts me night and day,

Why should I not deplore the graceless fall

That makes me what I am, and shuts me out

From a condition and society

As much above a sinful maiden's dreams

As Eden blest surpasses Eden curst?