DREAMING.

A STRANGE little Dream On a long star-beam Ran down from the midnight skies, To curly-hair'd Fred Asleep in his bed, With the lids on his merry blue eyes.

Under each lid The thin Dream slid, And spread to a picture inside, A new World there, Most strange and rare, Tho' just by our garden-side.

Rivers and Rocks, And a Treasure-Box, And Floating in Air without wings, And the Speaking Beast, And a Royal Feast, My chair beside the King's;

A Land of Flowers, And of lofty Towers Carved over in marble white With living Shapes Of Panthers and Apes That gambol in ceaseless flight;

And a Cellar small With its Cave in the Wall Stretching many a mile underground! And the Rope from the Moon!— Fred woke too soon, For its end could never be found.