Poems (Jackson)/A Dream

by Helen Hunt Jackson

For works with similar titles, see A Dream.

A DREAM.

DREAMED that I was dead and crossed the heavens,—
 Heavens after heavens with burning feet and swift,—
And cried: "O God, where art Thou? I left one
 On earth, whose burden I would pray Thee lift."

I was so dead I wondered at no thing,—
 Not even that the angels slowly turned
Their faces, speechless, as I hurried by
 (Beneath my feet the golden pavements burned);

Nor, at the first, that I could not find God,
 Because the heavens stretched endlessly like space.
At last a terror seized my very soul;
 I seemed alone in all the crowded place.

Then, sudden, one compassionate cried out,
 Though like the rest his face from me he turned,
As I were one no angel might regard
 (Beneath my feet the golden pavements burned):

"No more in heaven than earth will he find God.
 Who does not know his loving mercy swift
But waits the moment consummate and ripe,
 Each burden from each human soul to lift."

Though I was dead, I died again for shame;
 Lonely, to flee from heaven again I turned;
The ranks of angels looked away from me
 (Beneath my feet the golden pavements burned).