To Imagination.

When weary with the long day's care,     And earthly change from pain to pain,     And lost, and ready to despair,     Thy kind voice calls me back again:     Oh, my true friend!    I am not lone,     While then canst speak with such a tone!     So hopeless is the world without;     The world within I doubly prize;     Thy world, where guile, and hate, and doubt,     And cold suspicion never rise;     Where thou, and I, and Liberty,     Have undisputed sovereignty.     What matters it, that all around     Danger, and guilt, and darkness lie,     If but within our bosom's bound     We hold a bright, untroubled sky,     Warm with ten thousand mingled rays     Of suns that know no winter days?     Reason, indeed, may oft complain     For Nature's sad reality,     And tell the suffering heart how vain     Its cherished dreams must always be;     And Truth may rudely trample down     The flowers of Fancy, newly-blown:     But thou art ever there, to bring     The hovering vision back, and breathe     New glories o'er the blighted spring,     And call a lovelier Life from Death.     And whisper, with a voice divine,     Of real worlds, as bright as thine.     I trust not to thy phantom bliss,     Yet, still, in evening's quiet hour,     With never-failing thankfulness,     I welcome thee, Benignant Power;     Sure solacer of human cares,     And sweeter hope, when hope despairs!