Only a dream! <br />Her head is bent <br />Over the keys of the instrument, <br />While her trembling fingers go astray <br />In the foolish tune she tries to play. <br />He smiles in his heart, though his deep, sad eyes <br />Never change to a glad surprise <br />As he finds the answer he seeks confessed <br />In glowing features, and heaving breast. <br /> <br />Only a dream! <br />Though the fete is grand, <br />And a hundred hearts at her command, <br />She takes no part, for her soul is sick <br />Of the Coquette's art and the Serpent's trick,-- <br />She someway feels she would like to fling <br />Her sins away as a robe, and spring <br />Up like a lily pure and white, <br />And bloom alone for HIM to-night. <br /> <br />Only a dream <br />That the fancy weaves. <br />The lids unfold like the rose's leaves, <br />And the upraised eyes are moist and mild <br />As the prayerful eyes of a drowsy child. <br />Does she remember the spell they once <br />Wrought in the past a few short months? <br />Haply not--yet her lover's eyes <br />Never change to the glad surprise. <br /> <br />Only a dream! <br />He winds her form <br />Close in the coil of his curving arm, <br />And whirls her away in a gust of sound <br />As wild and sweet as the poets found <br />In the paradise where the silken tent <br />Of the Persian blooms in the Orient,-- <br />While ever the chords of the music seem <br />Whispering sadly,--'Only a dream!'<br /><br />James Whitcomb Riley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/only-a-dream-11/
