Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1844-04-19
POETRY.
From Hoods Magazine.
THE LADY's DREAM.

The lady laid in her bed,
Her couch warm and soft,
But her sleep was restless and broken still
For turning oft and oft
From side to side, she mutterod and moaned,
And tossed her arms aloil.
At last she started up,
And gazed on tho vacant ait,
With look OF awe, as if she
Some dreadful phantom there
And then in the pillow she buried her face
From visions III to bear
The very curtain shook,
Her terror WAS SO extreme,
And the light that fell on the bfoider'd quilt
Kept tremulOus CLEAN;
And her voice was hollow, and shook os she cried
" Oh me that awful dream!
"Thnt weary, weary walk,
In the churchyard's dismal ground!
And those horrible things, with shady wings,
That camo and fitted round -
Death, death, and nothing but death,
In every sight and sound!
" And OH those maidens young,
Who wrought in that dreafy room,
With figures dropping an spectres thin,
And cheeks without bloom = ~
And the voice that cried, For the pomp Of pride,
We haste to an early tomb!
"'For the pomp and pleasure of pride,
We toll like Airic slaves,
And only TO earn home at last,
Where yondcT cypress waves =
And then he pointed-t never saw
A ground SO full Of graves!
"And still the collins came,
With their sorrowlul trains and slow
Coffin after coffin still,
sad and sckenng show;
From grief exempt, never had dreamt
Of such q world OF wo
"Of the hearts that daily break,
OF the tears that hourly fall,
Of the many, many troubles of life
That grieve this earthly ball.
Disease and hunger, pain aud want;
But now / dreamt of them all
"For the blind and the cripple were there,
And the babe that pinod iorbrend,
And the houseless man, and the widow poor,
Who begged-to bury the dead
The naked, alas that might have clad,
The famished might have fed
"The sorrow | might have soothed,
And the unregarded tears;
For many throngng shape was there,
From long forgotten yeuIs
Aye, even the poor rejected Moor,
Who raised my childish fears
"Each pleading look, that long ago
| scanned with needless eye;
Each face gazing us plainly there,
As when passed it by;
Wo, wo, for me, if the past should be
Thus present when die
"No need of sulphurous lake,
No need of fiery coal,
But only that crowd of human kind,
Who wanted pity and dole
In everlasting retrospect
VIII wiring my sinful soul!
"Alas ! have walked through life
Too needless where 1 trod
Nay, helping to trample my fellow worm,
And fill the burial sod
forgetting lnut even inc SPARROW luls
Not unmarked of God!
81 drank the richest draughts,
And ate whatever is good
Fish, and flesh, and fowl, and fruit,
Supplied my hungry mood;
But never remembered the wretched ones,
That starve for want Of food
az dressed MS the noble dress,
In cloth OF silver and gold,
With silk and 81 tin, and costly furs,
In many an ample fold
But never remembered the naked limbs,
That frozo with winters cold.
"The wounds might have healed!
The human sorrow and smart!
And yet it was in my soui
10 play SO i'll part
But evil is wrought by want of thought,
As well as by want of heart"
Sho claspcd her fervent hands,
And the tears began to stream;
Large, and bitter, and fast they fell,
Remorse was extreme;
And yet, oh yet that many dame
Would dream the Lady's Dream!