ON DREAMS (SOME TRUTHS)

from “ON LIFE (SOME VERSES ON VIRTUE)”

Dreams be a plague,
o’er the ills of my mind’s eye,
Which hinges upon the embrace
of her fantasy,
Sweet fairy! Of infinite charm
and boundless beauty,
Guide me to the light that
rolls o’er the hills and fields
or cast me out to where I drown:
The Sea: My Love.
Have I died and gone to heaven?
Is this an Angel I see before me?
Who, in her modesty,
holds her wings and walks
as mortal men do
And leads me to temptation,
Whose smile is both torture and ecstasy: given but not shared,
seen but not remember’d
lost but not forgotten,
But soft now,
For the butterfly sings my sins,
And you, the key to my heart,
my mind, my body, my soul,
The lullaby to my nightmares.