14
poems.
Can mind
Be chained? can we concentrate ideas
Into one focus, and there confine them—
To please our fancy? will they not escape
From thraldom, bidding defiance to our
Feeble efforts to restrain them? Ofttimes
When we deemed the roving thought was fairly
Caught and fastened, and we were prepared
To have a feast of thinking, a banquet of
The soul, ere we could wink, 't was gone, flying
Through boundless space.
There are those who hold much
Faith in dreams, and deem them ominous of
Good or ill, according to the hue they
Wear; for myself, I have no faith in
Aught on earth; and though I deal in flights of
Fancy, and revel in ecstatic realms
Of fondest imagery, where airy sprites
And fairy elves extend their witching charms
To tempt us mortals from the plain pathway
Of real life, yet, I would not always
Dwell 'mid those bright bowers, but inhale
The changing elements of this world's facts:
Bitter with the sweet, thorns with the flowers,
And clouds and sunshine mingled with the showers.
Be chained? can we concentrate ideas
Into one focus, and there confine them—
To please our fancy? will they not escape
From thraldom, bidding defiance to our
Feeble efforts to restrain them? Ofttimes
When we deemed the roving thought was fairly
Caught and fastened, and we were prepared
To have a feast of thinking, a banquet of
The soul, ere we could wink, 't was gone, flying
Through boundless space.
There are those who hold much
Faith in dreams, and deem them ominous of
Good or ill, according to the hue they
Wear; for myself, I have no faith in
Aught on earth; and though I deal in flights of
Fancy, and revel in ecstatic realms
Of fondest imagery, where airy sprites
And fairy elves extend their witching charms
To tempt us mortals from the plain pathway
Of real life, yet, I would not always
Dwell 'mid those bright bowers, but inhale
The changing elements of this world's facts:
Bitter with the sweet, thorns with the flowers,
And clouds and sunshine mingled with the showers.
