The Dreamer

Sing the old song while the dear child is sleeping,
Sing it most sweetly and tenderly low ;
Not to awake her again to her weeping ;
Let the soft notes through her dream gently flow.
What, though the passionate tears were down-streaming
From eye-balls long parched, when she lay down to rest:
Poor thing, she now is most tranquilly dreaming ;
Her life is again with His dear presence blest.

See, o'er her wan face what joy brightly flushes ;
Beneath the dark lids how her eyes swell and gleam !
The sweet smile is drowned in the glow of love-blushes !
Yes ! he companions her now in the dream.
Darling ! her lips murmur softly and slowly, —
What sacred vows and confessions of love ?
Is not this Dream-life most blessed and holy,
Less of the earth than of Heaven above ?

No, do not draw down the white lawny curtain :
The moonlight sleeps still on her hair, on her face ;
Mystical blending of shadow uncertain >
With lustre as holy as Heaven's blessed grace.
It stirs not her slumber, but chastened and tender —
Our musical murmur half-thrilling its breast —
Pervades with a blissful entrancement of splendour
That dim world of dreams where her soul findeth rest.

Sing the old song still with low-voiced sweetness,
To harmonise well with her brief dream of bliss,
Blending therewith to ecstatic completeness : —
The poor pallid lips, are they trembling a kiss !
So may the words and the scenes of her vision
To her tranced spirit more exquisite grow ;
With beauty and glory and rapture Elysian
Subtly attuned to our soft music's flow :

And she may, alas, when she wakes with the morrow
To bitter reality, hopeless and lone,
Remember far more to sooth anguish and sorrow
Of the dream and the dream- words of him who is gone :
And so, when we sing the old song in her hearing,
May she with wonder and secret joy find
The dear words, the bliss of her dream re-appearing
With the loved music that flows through her mind.

Perhaps she now hears him an old love-lay singing ;
Does it not thrill in her eager, fixed face ?
Or hears the old Church-bells in golden chimes ringing
The union that cannot in this world take place.
But sleep, darling, sleep ; oh, dwell long in that heaven,
The strange, solemn dream-land so holy and calm,
Which God hath in mercy to such as thee given ;
Where all stricken hearts may find wound-healing balm.