A Dream

I dream'd a morning dream — a torrent brought
From fruitless hills, was rushing deep and wide:
It ran in rapids, like impatient thought;
It wheel'd in eddies, like bewilder'd pride:
Bleak-faced Neology, in cap and gown,
Peer'd up the channel of the spreading tide,
As, with a starved expectancy, he cried,
' When will the Body of the Christ come down?'
He came — not It, but He! no rolling waif
Tost by the waves — no drown'd and helpless form-
But with unlapsing step, serene and safe,
As once He trod the waters in the storm;
The gownsman trembled as his God went by —
I look'd again, the torrent-bed was dry.