I HAVE been sleeping all my years -- How well I know it -- deep asleep! I have dreamed pleasures, toil and tears, And loves I could -- or would -- not keep! There is one thing my sleep could break -- If any touched me I would wake! I have been sleeping all my years. Around me many came and went; Their voices lightly brushed my ears, Sooth tones, or tones of discontent, Pleading for love's or pity's sake -- If any touched me I would wake! I have been sleeping all my years. I dreamed I was not loath to do, To dare high things among my peers, To mount where fewer grow the few; Yes, oft I dreamed the heights to take -- If any touched me I would wake! I have been sleeping all my years. I dreamed that others, too, have slept, Although where shifting fortune steers, They turned and turned, the pace they kept! In all no meaning could I make -- If any touched me I would wake! I have been sleeping all my years. But, as in dreams past turn of night, The finger of the morn appears, I have one dream that, catching light, Leaves the dim spirit less opaque -- If any touched me I would wake! I have been sleeping all my years -- Yet no! Not if this dream is true, That somewhere (be it past the spheres!) Some part of me sleep never knew: One Touch the House of Life will shake -- One Touch -- and all of me shall wake! |