Enslavement Of Beauty

Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!
My spirit not awakening, till the beam
Of an Eternity should bring the morrow.
Yes! tho' that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,
'Twere better than the cold reality
Of waking life, to him whose heart must be,
And hath been still, upon the lovely earth,
A chaos of deep passion, from his birth.
But should it be - that dream eternally
Continuing - as dreams have been to me
In my young boyhood - should it thus be given,
'Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven.
For I have revell'd, when the sun was bright
I' the summer sky, in dreams of living light
And loveliness, - have left my very heart
In climes of my imagining, apart
From mine own home, with beings that have been
Of mine own thought - what more could I have seen?
'Twas once - and only once - and the wild hour