On Dreaming

I

When slumber seals our weary eyes,
The busy fancy wakeful keeps;
The scenes which then before us rise
Prove something in us never sleeps.

II

As in another world we seem,
A new creation of our own;
All appears real, though but a dream,
And all familiar, though unknown.

III

Sometimes, the mind beholds again
The past day’s business in review⁠—
Resumes the pleasure or the pain,
And sometimes all we meet is new.

IV

What schemes we form, what pains we take!
We fight, we run, we fly, we fall;
But all is ended when we wake,
We scarcely then a trace recall.

V

But though our dreams are often wild,
Like clouds before the driving storm;
Yet some important may be styled,
Sent to admonish or inform.

VI

What mighty agents have access,
What friends from heaven, or foes from hell,
Our minds to comfort or distress,
When we are sleeping, who can tell?

VII

One thing, at least, and ’tis enough,
We learn from this surprising fact⁠—
Our dreams afford sufficient proof,
The soul without the flesh can act.

VIII

This life, which mortals so esteem,
That many choose it for their all,
They will confess, was but a dream,
When waken’d by death’s awful call.