SEA DREAMS.
103
Down in the water, a long reef of gold,
Or what seem’d gold: and I was glad at first
To think that in our often-ransack’d world
Still so much gold was left; and then I fear’d
Lest the gay navy there should splinter on it,
And fearing waved my arm to warn them off;
An idle signal, for the brittle fleet
(I thought I could have died to save it) near’d,
Touch’d, clink’d, and clash’d, and vanish’d, and I woke,
I heard the clash so clearly. Now I see
My dream was Life; the woman honest Work;
And my poor venture but a fleet of glass
Wreck’d on a reef of visionary gold.’
Or what seem’d gold: and I was glad at first
To think that in our often-ransack’d world
Still so much gold was left; and then I fear’d
Lest the gay navy there should splinter on it,
And fearing waved my arm to warn them off;
An idle signal, for the brittle fleet
(I thought I could have died to save it) near’d,
Touch’d, clink’d, and clash’d, and vanish’d, and I woke,
I heard the clash so clearly. Now I see
My dream was Life; the woman honest Work;
And my poor venture but a fleet of glass
Wreck’d on a reef of visionary gold.’
‘Nay,’ said the kindly wife to comfort him,
‘You raised your arm, you tumbled down and broke
The glass with little Margaret’s medicine it it;
And, breaking that, you made and broke your dream:
A trifle makes a dream, a trifle breaks.’
‘You raised your arm, you tumbled down and broke
The glass with little Margaret’s medicine it it;
And, breaking that, you made and broke your dream:
A trifle makes a dream, a trifle breaks.’
