And up and down the hill reclined
  A host of statues old;
Such wondrous forms as you might find
  Deep under ancient mould.

They lay, wild scattered, all along,
  And maimed as if in fight;
But every one of all the throng
  Was precious to the sight.

Betwixt the night and hill they ranged,
  In dead composure cast. 
As suddenly the dream was changed,
  And all the wonder past.

The hill remained; but what it bore
  Was broken reedy stalks,
Bent hither, thither, drooping o’er,
  Like flowers o’er weedy walks.

For each dim form of marble rare,
  Bent a wind-broken reed;
So hangs on autumn-field, long-bare,
 Some tall and straggling weed.

The autumn night hung like a pall,
  Hung mournfully and dead;
And if a wind had waked at all,
  It had but moaned and fled.

5.

I lay and dreamed.  Of thought and sleep
  Was born a heavenly joy: 
I dreamed of two who always keep
  Me happy as a boy.

I was with them.  My heart-bells rung
  With joy my heart above;
Their present heaven my earth o’erhung,
  And earth was glad with love.

The dream grew troubled.  Crowds went on,
  And sought their varied ends;
Till stream on stream, the crowds had gone,
  And swept away my friends.

I was alone.  A miry road
  I followed, all in vain;
No well-known hill the landscape showed,
  It was a wretched plain;

Where mounds of rubbish, ugly pits,
  And brick-fields scarred the globe;
Those wastes where desolation sits
  Without her ancient robe.

A drizzling rain proclaimed the skies
  As wretched as the earth;
I wandered on, and weary sighs
  Were all my lot was worth.

When sudden, as I turned my way,
  Burst in the ocean-waves: 
And lo! a blue wild-dancing bay
  Fantastic rocks and caves!

I wept with joy.  Ah! sometimes so,
  In common daylight grief,
A beauty to the heart will go,
  And bring the heart relief.

And, wandering, reft of hope or friend,
  If such a thing should be,
One day we take the downward bend,
  And lo, Eternity!

I wept with joy, delicious tears,
  Which dreams alone bestow;
Until, mayhap, from out the years
  We sleep, and further go.

6.

Now I will mould a dream, awake,
  Which I, asleep, would dream;
From all the forms of fancy take
  One that shall also seem;
Seem in my verse (if not my brain),
  Which sometimes may rejoice
In airy forms of Fancy’s train,
  Though nobler are my choice.

Some truth o’er all the land may lie
  In children’s dreams at night;
They do not build the charmed sky
  That domes them with delight. 
And o’er the years that follow soon,
  So all unlike the dreams,
Wander their odours, gleams their moon,
  And flow their winds and streams.