Page:Poems of Sentiment and Imagination.djvu/44

40 A REVERIE.

from fancy's land of wonders

Come the dreams that haunt my brain,

But from out the past's dim chambers

Glide anon the shadowy train.

On each pale and solemn visage

Is some old remembrance prest,

Some old memory that hath lingered

Ever fadeless in my breast.

And as troop on troop of visions

Through thought's silent halls defile,

Like the ancient ghosts that wander

Through some lone cathedral aisle,

New-born fancies mix and mingle

With the old familiar throng,

And the Past and Present meeting,

Form the river-tide of song.

Dreams of present have no power,

And no grandeur like the past;

Glory borrows its enchantment

From the distance it is cast;

But the present is the wizard

That can break oblivion's seal,

And the "dead past's dead" unburied,

By a magic word reveal.

Life has many hidden currents,

Like the cave-streams of the earth,

Flowing deep and strong in secret,

Ne'er betraying bourne or birth;

But the flood in darkness wandering

With no flower upon its way,

Has its course 'mong richer treasures

Than have met the blaze of day.