Dreams

    Oh! miserable power
To dreams allow’d, to raise the guilty past,
And back awhile the illumined spirit to cast
    On its youth’s twilight hour;
In mockery guiling it to act again
The revel or the scoff in Satan’s frantic train!

    Nay, hush thee, angry heart!
An Angel’s grief ill fits a penitent;
Welcome the thorn⁠—it is divinely sent,
    And with its wholesome smart
Shall pierce thee in thy virtue’s palmy home,
And warn thee what thou art, and whence thy wealth has come.