Something Childish, But Very Natural - By Samuel Taylor Coleridge

WRITTEN IN GERMANY


  If I had but two little wings
    And were a little feathery bird,
      To you I'd fly, my dear!
  But thoughts like these are idle things,
      And I stay here.

  But in my sleep to you I fly:
     I'm always with you in my sleep!
         The world is all one's own.
  But then one wakes, and where am I?
             All, all alone.

  Sleep stays not, though a monarch bids:
     So I love to wake ere break of day:
             For though my sleep be gone,
  Yet while 'tis dark, one shuts one's lids,
                And still dreams on.

April 23, 1799.