Wrapped in the blanket of hope I slept long. I dreamed I was sitting on a throne, my face wreathed in smiles. My smiles withered, and the petals of my merriment dropped away one by one.
Suddenly I beheld myself in rags. Seated on the hard stones of poverty I wept, and my teardrops fell on the unheeding, unrelenting stones of my present circumstances.
The world passed me by in mocking silence. I cried out for Thy help, and Thou didst wake me at last through the force of my desperation. I laughed to find myself at last neither rich nor poor, but safe forever in Thy arms.
Oh! Waken all anxious souls from their dreams of smiling opulence and crying poverty.
O Maker of dream-worlds, deliver me forever from the nightmares of disease and death!
Wake me to immortality! Wake me to unshaken calmness, that I may know the fierce terrors of mundane delusion to be only dreams.
