The Dead Dream
    By Madison Julius Cawein

    Between the darkness and the day
    As, lost in doubt, I went my way,
    I met a shape, as faint as fair,
    With star-like blossoms in its hair:
    Its body, which the moon shone through,
    Was partly cloud and partly dew:
    Its eyes were bright as if with tears,
    And held the look of long-gone years;
    Its mouth was piteous, sweet yet dread,
    As if with kisses of the dead:
    And in its hand it bore a flower,
    In memory of some haunted hour.
    I knew it for the Dream I'd had
    In days when life was young and glad.
    Why had it come with love and woe
    Out of the happy Long-Ago?
    Upon my brow I felt its breath,
    Heard ancient. words of faith and death,
    Sweet with the immortality
    Of many a fragrant memory:
    And to my heart again I took
    Its joy and sorrow in a look,
    And kissed its eyes and held it fast,
    And bore it home from out the past
    My Dream of Beauty and of Truth,
    I dreamed had perished with my Youth.

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