To A Friend

I ask but one thing of you, only one,

That always you will be my dream of you;

That never shall I wake to find untrue All this I have believed and rested on,

Forever vanished, like a vision gone Out into the night.

Alas, how few There are who strike in us a chord we knew Existed, but so seldom heard its tone We tremble at the half-forgotten sound.

The world is full of rude awakenings And heaven-born castles shattered to the ground,

Yet still our human longing vainly clings To a belief in beauty through all wrongs.

O stay your hand, and leave my heart its songs!