My Dreams

Somtimes ill dreams will haunt my sleep.

Like those which came to me last night:
For hardly one had time to pass
Before another did affright.
Sin's heroes I in purple saw:
On virtue crushed their feet did tread; —
A ghastly footstool, red and white.
Whose eyes shed tears, whose heart-veins bled.
I saw gaunt faces, worn and serene.
And yellow- as the moon at night:
Each phantom face so ghastly seemed,
Like to a wraithly weird moonlight.
Around them joyous faces were,
On which the sun of comfort shone;
And yellow as each starveling face
The golden spurs their heel had on.
A man I saw upon his bier,
A deep wound just above his heart!
His own son killed him! And his wife-
Does she now play the mourner's part?
His wife! Ah, nay; she does not weep;
While he lies near in dreamlessness,
She, in a close, adjoining room,
Receives her lover's fond caress!

Then, as he lies within his tomb,
His relatives — a hungry crowd —
Come, and his grave-vault open break

And rob him of his funeral shroud!
I saw forsaken, desert lands,
Where public virtue seemed as dead;

Where night did reign, where dawn was near,
On herdsmen's swords a sanguine red.
I looked on fallen states enslaved,

Where bondsmen's shrieks one could not hear;
Because their plaints and groans were killed
By tyrants' laughter in the ear.
Such dreams, indeed, are nightly mine; —
Small marvel that it should be so!
For what in visions I divine
The world doth, and the world will know!
How long will this dread world endure?
Why is that heavenly force so slow —
Thou comet long ordained — this earth

From its set axis to o'erthrow?