Roll on then, fair orb, and with gladness pursue The path that conducts thee to splendour again; But man's faded glory no change shall renew; Ah, fool! to exult in a glory so vain. ED. ] I HEARD (ALAS! 'TWAS ONLY IN A DREAM) Composed 1819.--Published 1819 One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."--ED. I heard (alas! 'twas only in a dream) Strains--which, as sage Antiquity believed, By waking[386] ears have sometimes been received Wafted adown the wind from lake or stream; A most melodious requiem, a supreme 5 And perfect harmony of notes, achieved By a fair Swan on drowsy billows heaved, O'er which her pinions shed a silver gleam. For is she not the votary of Apollo? And knows she not, singing as he inspires,[387] 10 That bliss awaits her which the ungenial Hollow[DU] Of the dull earth partakes not, nor desires? Mount, tuneful Bird, and join the immortal quires! She soared--and I awoke, struggling in vain to follow. Socrates to Simmias.--"Will you not allow that I have as much of the spirit of prophecy in me as the swans? For they, when they perceive that they must die, having sung all their life long, do then sing more than ever, rejoicing in the thought that they are about to go away to the God, whose ministers they are. But men, because they are themselves afraid of death, slanderously affirm of the swans, that they sing a lament at the last, not considering that no bird sings when cold, or hungry, or in pain, not even the nightingale, nor the swallow, nor yet the hoopoe, which are said indeed to tune a lay of sorrow, although I do not believe this to be true of them any more than of the swans. But because they are sacred to Apollo, they have the gift of prophecy, and anticipate the good things of another world; wherefore they sing and rejoice in that day more than ever they did before. And I too, believing myself to be the consecrated servant of the same God, and the fellow-servant of the swans, and thinking that I have received from my master gifts of prophecy which are not inferior to theirs, would not go out of life less merrily than the swans." _Phædo_, 85 (Jowett's translation, vol. i. p. 462).--ED. VARIANTS: [Footnote 386: 1819. By living ... MS. ] [Footnote 387: 1819. ... inspired, MS. ] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote DU: See the _Phædon_ of Plato, by which this Sonnet was suggested.--W. W. 1819.] THE HAUNTED TREE[DV] To ---- Composed 1819.--Published 1820 [This tree grew in the park of Rydal, and I have often listened to its creaking as described.--I. F.] One of the "Poems of the Imagination."--ED.