For thee I've work'd it in my hours of sadness
And interwoven with my scalding tears:
With this thou'lt bind my eyes."


DREAMS.


Oh! there is a dream of early youth,
And it never comes again;
'Tis a vision of light, of life, and truth,
That flits across the brain:
And love is the theme of that early dream.
So wild, so warm, so new,
That in all our after years I deem,
That early dream we rue.

Oh! there is a dream of maturer years,
More turbulent by far;
'Tis a vision of blood, and of woman's tears,
For the theme of that dream is war:
And we toil in the field of danger and death,
And shout in the battle array,
Till we find that fame is a bodyless breath,
That vanisheth away.

Oh! there is a dream of hoary age,
'Tis a vision of gold in store--
Of sums noted down on the figured page,
To be counted o'er and o'er: