WALKED beside the evening sea,
And dreamed a dream that could not be;
The waves that plunged along the shore
Said only—"Dreamer, dream no more!"

But still the legions charged the beach;
Loud rang their battle-cry, like speech;
But changed was the imperial strain:
It murmured—"Dreamer, dream again!"

I homeward turned from out the gloom,—
That sound I heard not in my room;
But suddenly a sound that stirred
Within my very breast, I heard.

It was my heart, that like a sea
Within my breast beat ceaselessly:
But like the waves along the shore,
It said—"Dream on!" and "Dream no more!"

~ George William Curtis (1824-1892)

CURTIS, GEORGE WILLIAM. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, February 24, 1824; died in Staten Island, New York, August 31, 1892. One of the youngest of the idealists who joined the Brook Farm Community and participated in the picturesque life of that period, George William Curtis remained throughout his life an idealist, but of a more practical sort. He was identified with many movements for social reform, was an accomplished public speaker, and a man of great charm of personality. He wrote little verse, but his prose is suffused with poetry. Reprinted from The Little Book of American Poets: 1787-1900.

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