A DREAM

In visions of the dark night

    I have dreamed of joy departed--
  But a waking dream of life and light
    Hath left me broken-hearted.

  Ah! what is not a dream by day

    To him whose eyes are cast

  On things around him with a ray

    Turned back upon the past?

  That holy dream--that holy dream,

    While all the world were chiding,

  Hath cheered me as a lovely beam,

    A lonely spirit guiding.

  What though that light, thro' storm and night,

    So trembled from afar--

  What could there be more purely bright

    In Truth's day – star?

Edgar Allan POE     

  A.D. 1837