Author. <br />A lovely form there sate beside my bed, <br />And such a feeding calm its presence shed, <br />A tender love so pure from earthly leaven <br />That I unnethe the fancy might control, <br />'Twas my own spirit newly come from heaven <br />Wooing its gentle way into my soul! <br />But ah! the change -- It had not stirred, and yet <br />Alas! that change how fain would I forget? <br />That shrinking back, like one that had mistook! <br />That weary, wandering, disavowing Look! <br />'Twas all another, feature, look and frame, <br />And still, methought, I knew it was the same! <br /> <br />Friend. <br />This riddling Tale, to what does it belong? <br />Is't History? Vision? or an idle Song? <br />Or rather say at once, within what space <br />Of Time this wild disastrous change took place? <br /> <br />Author. <br />Call it a moment's work (and such it seems), <br />This Tale's a Fragment from the Life of Dreams; <br />But say, that years matured the silent strife, <br />And 'tis a Record from the Dream of Life.<br /><br />Samuel Taylor Coleridge<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/phantom-or-fact-a-dialogue-in-verse/
