Dubiety

I will be happy if but for once:     Only help me, Autumn weather,     Me and my cares to screen, ensconce     In luxurys sofa-lap of leather!     Sleep? Nay, comfort with just a cloud     Suffusing day too clear and bright:     Eves essence, the single drop allowed     To sully, like milk, Noons water-white.     Let gauziness shade, not shroud, adjust,     Dim and not deaden, somehow sheathe     Aught sharp in the rough worlds busy thrust,     If it reach me through dreamings vapor-wreath.     Be life so, all things ever the same!     For, what has disarmed the world? Outside,     Quiet and peace: inside, nor blame     Nor want, nor wish whateer betide.     What is it like that has happened before?     A dream? No dream, more real by much.     A vision? But fanciful days of yore     Brought many: mere musing seems not such.     Perhaps but a memory, after all!     Of what came once when a woman leant     To feel for my brow where her kiss might fall.     Truth ever, truth only the excellent!