Tamerlane and Other Poems (1884)/"A wilder'd being from my birth"

by Edgar Allan Poe

A wilder'd being from my birth,
My spirit spurn'd control,
But now, abroad on the wide earth.
Where wanderest thou, my soul?

In visions of the dark night
I have dream'd of joy departed—
But a waking dream of life and light
Hath left me broken-hearted.

And what is not a dream by day
To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him with a ray
Turn'd back upon the past?

That holy dream—that holy dream,
While all the world were chiding,
Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
A lonely spirit guiding—

What tho' that light, thro' misty night
So dimly shone afar—
"What could there be more purely bright
In Truth's day-star?