Poems (Linn)/A Dream

by Edith Willis Linn

For works with similar titles, see A Dream.

A DREAM.

THE world had long been sleeping;
 The earth was cold and gray;
I heard but the sound of my footsteps
 As they echoed on the way;
And the voice of pines whose singing
 Was learned of the waves by day.

I raced with a star while dreaming
 All through the silent night;
Till I felt the air on my forehead
 Of the night bird's sweeping flight;
Yet I saw the bending primrose,
 And the lily tall and white.

It mattered not though the pathway
 Grew stony, narrow, steep;
That to thorns turned rose and lily,
 For my soul, too glad to weep,
Pursued the beautiful vision,
 With ecstasy full and deep.

On, on through the dewy silence
 My restless spirit fled,
No thought of all I was leaving
 While that starry glory led,
Which beckoned, forever beckoned,
 And forever onward sped.

It was only a dream and faded
 When the sun touched dale and hill.
Only a dream! but onward
 Its glory leads me still.
O, beautiful star, I follow!
 Lead wheresoever you will.