Great Short Works of Edgar Allan Poe

Chapter One

Dreams

Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!
My spirit not awak'ning till the beam
Of an Eternity should bring the morrow:
Yes! tho' that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,
'Twere better than the dull reality
Of waking life to him whose heart shall be,
And bath been ever, on the chilly 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
In the summer sky; in dreamy fields of light,
And left unbeedingly my very heart
In climes of mine imagining—apart
From mine own home, with beings that have been
Of mine own thought—wbat more could I have seen?

'Twas once and only once and the wild hour
From my remembrance shall not pass-some power
Or spell had bound me-'twas the chilly wind
Came o'er me in the night and left behind
Its image on my spirit, or the moon
Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noo ... read full excerpt from Great Short Works of Edgar Allan Poe ebook