"If there were dreams to sell"

If there were dreams to sell what would you buy?

IF there were dreams to sell,

Do I not know full well

   What I would buy?

Hope's dear delusive spell

Its happy tale to tell,

   Joy's fleeting sigh.

I would be young again;

Youth's maddening bliss and bane

   I would recapture;

Though it were keen with pain,

All else seems void and vain

   To that fine rapture.

I would be glad once more,

Slip through an open door

   Into Life's glory;

Keep what I spent of yore,

Find what I lost before,

Hear an old story.

As it one day befell,

Breaking Death's frozen spell,

   Love should draw nigh:

If there were dreams to sell,

Do I know too well

   What I would buy?

Louise Chandler Moulton

Index to poems in the collection by Louise Chandler Moulton