Cockayne Country

Near where yonder evening star
Makes a glory in the air,
Lies a land dream-found and far
Where it is light alway.
There those lovely ghosts repair
Who in Sleep's enchantment are,
In Cockayne dwell all things fair —

(But it is far away.)
Through the gates— a goodly sight —

Troops of men and maidens come,
There shut out from Heaven at night
Belated angels stray;
Down those wide-arch'd groves they roam
Through a land of great delight,
Dreaming they are safe at home —

(But it is far away.)
There the leaves of all the trees
Written are with a running rhyme,
There all poets live at peace,
And lovers are true, they say.
Earth in that unwinter'd clime
Like a star incarnate sees
The glory of her future time. —

(But it is far away.)
Hard to find as it is far!

Dark nights shroud its brilliance rare,
Crouching round the cloudy bar
Under the wings of day.
But if thither ye will fare,
Love and Death the pilots are, —
Might either one convey me there!