A Dream + 

Was it a dream? We sail’d, I thought we sail’d, + 

Martin and I, down a green Alpine stream, + 

Under o’erhanging pines; the morning sun, + 

On the wet umbrage of their glossy tops, + 

On the red pinings of their forest floor, + 

Drew a warm scent abroad; behind the pines + 

The mountain skirts, with all their sylvan change + 

Of bright-leaf’d chestnuts, and moss’d walnut-trees, + 

And the frail scarlet-berried ash, began. + 

Swiss chalets glitter’d on the dewy slopes, + 

And from some swarded shelf high up, there came + 

Notes of wild pastoral music: over all + 

Rang’d, diamond-bright, the eternal wall of snow. + 

Upon the mossy rocks at the stream’s edge, + 

Back’d by the pines, a plank-built cottage stood, + 

Bright in the sun; the climbing gourd-plant’s leaves + 

Muffled its walls, and on the stone-strewn roof + 

Lay the warm golden gourds; golden, within, + 

Under the eaves, peer’d rows of Indian corn. + 

We shot beneath the cottage with the stream. + 

On the brown rude-carv’d balcony two Forms + 

Came forth⁠—Olivia’s, Marguerite! and thine. + 

Clad were they both in white, flowers in their breast; + 

Straw hats bedeck’d their heads, with ribbons blue, + 

Which wav’d, and on their shoulders fluttering play’d. + 

They saw us, they conferr’d; their bosoms heav’d, + 

And more than mortal impulse fill’d their eyes. + 

Their lips mov’d; their white arms, wav’d eagerly, + 

Flash’d once, like falling streams:⁠—we rose, we gaz’d: + 

One moment, on the rapid’s top, our boat + 

Hung pois’d⁠—and then the darting River of Life + 

Loud thundering, bore us by: swift, swift it foam’d, + 

Black under cliffs it rac’d, round headlands shone. + 

Soon the plank’d cottage ’mid the sun-warm’d pines + 

Faded, the moss, the rocks; us burning Plains + 

Bristled with cities, us the Sea receiv’d. + 