Thomas Moore (1779-1852). Love's Young Dream. William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. 1909. The Book of Georgian Verse

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Georgian Verse. 1909.

Love’s Young Dream

By Thomas Moore (1779–1852)


OH! the days are gone, when Beauty bright
My heart’s chain wove;
When my dream of life, from morn till night,
Was love, still love.
New hope may bloom,	5
And days may come
Of milder, calmer beam,
But there’s nothing half so sweet in life
As love’s young dream:
No, there’s nothing half so sweet in life	10
As love’s young dream.

Tho’ the bard to purer fame may soar,
When wild youth’s past;
Tho’ he win the wise, who frown’d before,
To smile at last;	15
He’ll never meet
A joy so sweet,
In all his noon of fame,
As when first he sung to woman’s ear,
His soul-felt flame,	20
And, at every close, she blush’d to hear
The one loved name.

No,—that hallowed form is ne’er forgot
Which first love traced;
Still it lingering haunts the greenest spot	25
On memory’s waste.
’Twas odour fled
As soon as shed;
’Twas morning’s wingèd dream;
’Twas a light that ne’er can shine again	30
On life’s dull stream:
Oh! ’twas light that ne’er can shine again
On life’s dull stream.