Walked beside the evening sea,
And dreamed a dream that could not be;
The waves that plunged along the shore
Said only -- "Dreamer, dream no more!"
But still the legions charged the beach;
Loud rang their battle-cry, like speech;
But changed was the imperial strain:
It murmured -- "Dreamer, dream again!"
I homeward turned from out the gloom,
That sound I heard not in my room;
But suddenly a sound that stirred
Within my very breast, I heard.
It was my heart, that like a sea
Within my breast beat ceaselessly:
But like the waves along the shore,
It said -- "Dream on!" and "Dream no more!"
~ George William Curtis (1824-1892)
