I am weary of transgressions; I have sinned; Prone to vice and indiscretion, Vacillation, misimpression, As the wind. Neither sins nor imperfections I conceal; Evil thoughts, impure reflections, Faults in manifold directions, Can I feel. I am tired of life's illusion, I would rest; Leave its turmoil and confusion, Fain would know the blest seclusion Of Thy breast. Through the shadows of the valley As I speed, Bid my faltering courage rally, To resist each adverse sally; Wilt Thou lead? For I know that Thou art reigning Over all; With this confidence remaining, Let me feel Thy Hand sustaining Lest I fall. DREAMS A dream is the ghost of a fond delight, An echo of former smiles or tears, Wafted to us on the wings of night From the silent bourne of the vanished years. A dream is a perished joy, restored From the mystical regions beyond our ken, Which we fain would press as a thing adored, To our breasts, ere it fades and is lost again. A dream is a buried hope exhumed, 'Tis an iridescent thing of air, Which mocks at the spirit, by fate entombed In the catacombs of a mute despair. A dream is a reflex view of life, A blending of fancy with solemn truth, A retrospection of mundane strife, Old age re-living the scenes of youth. Our dreams are but mirrors for our desires; The proud ambition, the lofty aim Achieved in our sleep, but the night expires And the dull existence plods on the same. A dream is a feeble ray of light, A rift in the shadows through which we grope, An evidence that eternal night Can never extinguish the star of hope. NOCTURNE As fall the dews of slumber soft and deep, On wilderness and populated town, Bound by the sweet influences of sleep, Proud reason abdicates her golden crown; Dark Lethe, of oblivious renown, Fain would I quaff from thy forgetful streams, In willing thralldom would I lay me down, To court the fair companionship of dreams, And bask within their iridescent beams. Or linger in the vestibule of sleep, Where blow the winds of memory from the past, Ere yet the languid shades of slumber deep Have o'er the sense their dormant shadows cast; Or muse upon the infinite and vast, Till speculations various confuse, And thought, unmerciful iconoclast, With shattered images the path bestrews, Yet leads to chaos of conflicting views.