73. Dreams

{131}
       OH! miserable power
To dreams allow'd, to raise the guilty past,
And back awhile the illumined spirit to cast
       On its youth's twilight hour;
In mockery guiling it to act again
The revel or the scoff in Satan's frantic train!

       Nay, hush thee, angry heart!
An Angel's grief ill fits a penitent;
Welcome the thorn—it is divinely sent,
       And with its wholesome smart
Shall pierce thee in thy virtue's palmy home,
And warn thee what thou art, and whence thy
       wealth has come.

Pæstum
.
February 26, 1833.

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Newman Reader — Works of John Henry Newman
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