sonnet xxi

dismay awakes when eyes are touched by dawn
and see about them mere the shadow of
the nightly hour that drenched with verse and love
has passed away like her, once here, now gone
a fairy tale the moon had whispered: "yawn
you soul, doze off so you may fly above
ascended in your joy dream, as the rough
of places smooth on touch of oberon."
tormented through the day i see my dream
on long horizons dancing with the sea
i pray to turn and to return to me
and all my heart sings this redundant theme
that dreaming is the wake; reality
deludes; a ship a sleeper's nightmare's scheme