The Dream (It Comes Too Often, and Yet Not Often Enough)

The Dream

(It Comes Too Often, and Yet Not Often Enough)

I lay my head on restful pillow, and soon it comes,

A vision woven out of dusk and gold—

with soundtrack of a lovely voice that lilts and hums,

And time itself forgets to grow so old.

The moonlight trembles on her hair’s pale streams,

Her eyes—green pools where heaven stoops to gaze—

Call me to wander back through mortal dreams,

Where love once bloomed in unrepentant blaze.

We speak as souls who know the art of pain,

Of sonnets memorized in the mind’s deep hall;

Our hearts—two lamps that flicker in the rain—

Still burn, though distance builds its silent wall.

Each Friday’s self-portrait, each shared refrain,

Seemed proof the flame had not yet died at all.

I feel her breath, though miles of air divide,

I taste her name in every whispered prayer—

We kiss, and time dissolves, the world aside,

Our souls are young, immortal, unaware.

But morning comes—a hush, a closing door,

And I am left where dreams can touch no more.

Yet still she comes—too often, yet not enough—

Her presence both my torment and my balm;

She stirs the ashes of remembered love,

Then leaves my heart to seek her vanished calm.

O cruel cruel enchantment! Sweet and sorrow-spun!

Thy phantom love outlives the living one.

She walks my sleep, yet never in the day,

A haunting star I cannot bid to stay.

If heaven wills that dreams alone may bind,

Then let me dream—her eyes, her smile, her mind.