Classic Poem

Life is a dream in the Eternal Sleep,
And love the fancy of its little hour.
How like a vision, when there slowly creep
Known faces and unknown that peer and lower
O'er hidden corners, and of sorrow's pall
Make hideous mockery; where alternate
Hope and despair, mad agony and all
The aching pangs of ruth bow to dumb Fate,
The prescient power that dims their moment's light.
O may love's passionate and pulsing breath
Fire fancy's bourgeouny 'round my dark night
And crown my sleep with heaven's star-gold wreath.
Life without love, it were a tear-swept moan,
Heaven denied, mid depths of hell unknown.