C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

The Dream of Life

To My Son

Paraphrased from ‘Les Feuilles Volantes,’ by Maurice Francis Egan

AT twenty years, a poet lone,

I, when the rosy season came,

Walked in the woodland, to make moan

For some fair dame;

And when the breezes brought to me

The lilac spent in fragrant stream,

I wove her infidelity

In love’s young dream.

A lover of illusions, I!

Soon other dreams quite filled my heart,

And other loves as suddenly

Took old love’s part.

One Glory, a deceitful fay,

Who flies before a man can stir,

Surprised my poor heart many a day,—

I dreamed of her!

But now that I have grown so old,

At lying things I grasp no more.

My poor deceived heart takes hold

Of other lore.

Another life before us glows,

Casts on all faithful souls its gleam:

Late, late, my heart its glory knows,—

Of it I dream!