Well, let me dream. This life's realities
Are all too harsh and cold. They chill my heart.
Then chide me not, but let me dream of love,
Of wealth, of honors or of pleasures hour
Of fair scenes and lands of fadeless light,
Where Spring still wantons midst eternal flowers.
Where balmy zephyrs breathe a sweet perfume
And nature's harmonies entrance the ear,

For what is life, at best,
But a brief vision, filled with emptiness,
And mockeries of delight that cheat our wish;
Peopled with shadows that before us fly,
Where naught is real but our useless toil.
And rugged rock and steep and slippery paths,
And briars and thorns that tear us as we pass?

But in my dreams I have another world,
Where I find all that's good and pure and true,
And shapes of beauty, varying as the clouds.
Scenes of enchantment, redolent with love
And full of sweet delicious harmonies;
For my free thought, endued with eagle's wings,
Sweeps the empyrean, with unfettered flight
And bears me nearer heaven.