Dreamer, Say

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Dreamer, say, will you dream for me
  A wild sweet dream of a foreign land,
Whose border sips of a foaming sea
  With lips of coral and silver sand;
Where warm winds loll on the shady deeps,
  Or lave themselves in the tearful mist
The great wild wave of the breaker weeps
  O'er crags of opal and amethyst?

Dreamer, say, will you dream a dream
  Of tropic shades in the lands of shine,
Where the lily leans o'er an amber stream
  That flows like a rill of wasted wine,--
Where the palm-trees, lifting their shields of green,
  Parry the shafts of the Indian sun
Whose splintering vengeance falls between
  The reeds below where the waters run?

Dreamer, say, will you dream of love
  That lives in a land of sweet perfume,
Where the stars drip down from the skies above
  In molten spatters of bud and bloom?
Where never the weary eyes are wet,
  And never a sob in the balmy air,
And only the laugh of the paroquet
  Breaks the sleep of the silence there?

© James Whitcomb Riley