To M.S.G.

1. 1When I dream that you love me, you'll surely forgive;
2. 2Extend not your anger to sleep;
3. 3For in visions alone your affection can live,--
4. 4I rise, and it leaves me to weep.

1. 5Then, Morpheus! envelop my faculties fast,
2. 6Shed o'er me your languor benign;
3. 7Should the dream of to-night but resemble the last,
4. 8What rapture celestial is mine!

1. 9They tell us that slumber, the sister of death,
2. 10Mortality's emblem is given;
3. 11To fate how I long to resign my frail breath,
4. 12If this be a foretaste of Heaven!

1. 13Ah! frown not, sweet Lady, unbend your soft brow,
2. 14Nor deem me too happy in this;
3. 15If I sin in my dream, I atone for it now,
4. 16Thus doom'd, but to gaze upon bliss.

1. 17Though in visions, sweet Lady, perhaps you may smile,
2. 18Oh! think not my penance deficient!
3. 19When dreams of your presence my slumbers beguile,
4. 20To awake, will be torture sufficient.