"A Dream"

A Dream

I lay last night and heard the ceaseless rain

            Drip in soft rhythm from the ragged eaves

            And musically play upon the leaves;

The rose-vines trembled on my window-pane,

And lost from some wild tempest on the plain

            Spent winds came dying up the quiet lea.

            Across the tide-lands ebbed the shivering sea,

And knowing the midnight hour was on the wane,

Sighing, I turned and slept, and, sleeping, dreamed. . . .

            Straight thro’ the dark thou camest, as of old,

            Trembling, yet eager; strong to claim thine own;

The same pure rapture in thy deep eyes beamed.

            I ran to meet thee. . . then a clear bell tolled,

            And I awoke―forevermore alone!

"A Dream" as it appears in Ella Higginson's When the Birds Go North Again (1898).