Classic Poem

O would that dreams were not the things they are,
Mere unsubstantial pageants, born and dying
With the light sleep that makes them, coming, flying,
Like evening clouds, how beautiful and fair.
O, they are thinner than the empty air,
And yet how blessed, when they bend and smile
How the heart flows away in rapture, while,
Dear fond illusions, they are lingering there!

They have a touch and voice. That bosom, swelling
With a young world of joys, how softly heaves:
It lifts its gauzy veil, like feathery leaves
Waved lightly over Yemen's palmy dwelling,
A higher bliss than even hope believes,
To the fixed eye of slumbering fondness telling.