National Lyrics, and Songs for Music/The Sister's Dream

For other versions of this work, see The Sister's Dream.







THE SISTER'S DREAM.




Suggested by a picture, in which a young girl is represented as sleeping, and visited during her slumbers by the spirits of her departed sisters.


THE SISTER'S DREAM.




She sleeps!—but not the free and sunny sleep
    That lightly on the brow of childhood lies:
Though happy be her rest, and soft, and deep,
    Yet, ere it sunk upon her shadowed eyes,
Thoughts of past scenes and kindred graves o'erswept
Her soul's meek stillness:—she had prayed and wept.

And now in visions to her couch they come,
    The early lost—the beautiful—the dead—
That unto her bequeathed a mournful home,
    Whence with their voices all sweet laughter fled;
They rise—the sisters of her youth arise,
As from the world where no frail blossom dies.


And well the sleeper knows them not of earth—
    Not as they were when binding up the flowers,
Telling wild legends round the winter-hearth,
    Braiding their long fair hair for festal hours;
These things are past;—a spiritual gleam,
A solemn glory, robes them in that dream.

Yet, if the glee of life's fresh budding years
    In those pure aspects may no more be read,
Thence, too, hath sorrow melted,—and the tears
    Which o'er their mother's holy dust they shed,
Are all effaced; there earth hath left no sign
Save its deep love, still touching every line.

But oh! more soft, more tender, breathing more
    A thought of pity, than in vanished days:
While, hovering silently and brightly o'er
    The lone one's head, they meet her spirit's gaze
With their immortal eyes, that seem to say,
"Yet, sister, yet we love thee, come away!"


'Twill fade, the radiant dream! and will she not
    Wake with more painful yearning at her heart?
Will not her home seem yet a lonelier spot,
    Her task more sad, when those bright shadows part?
And the green summer after them look dim,
And sorrow's tone be in the bird's wild hymn?

But let her hope be strong, and let the dead
    Visit her soul in heaven's calm beauty still,
Be their names uttered, be their memory spread
    Yet round the place they never more may fill!
All is not over with earth's broken tie—
Where, where should sisters love, if not on high?