LAST night I dreamed
No dream of joy or sorrow,
Yet, when I woke, I wept,
Knowing the brightness of some far to-morrow
Had darkened while I slept!

by Isabel Ecclestone Mackay.

Ay, Workman, Make Me A Dream

Ay, workman, make me a dream,
A dream for my love.
Cunningly weave sunlight,
Breezes, and flowers.
Let it be of the cloth of meadows.
And - good workman -
And let there be a man walking thereon.

by Stephen Crane.

Let me not mar that perfect Dream

Let me not mar that perfect Dream
By an Auroral stain
But so adjust my daily Night
That it will come again.

Not when we know, the Power accosts -
The Garment of Surprise
Was all our timid Mother wore
At Home - in Paradise.

by Emily Dickinson.

I BURIED Joy; and early to the tomb
I came to weep--so sorrowful was I
Who had not dreamed that Joy, my Joy, could die.

I turned away, and by my side stood Joy
All glorified--ah, so ashamed was I
Who dared to dream that Joy, my Joy, could die!

by Isabel Ecclestone Mackay.

I SEE a spirit
Young and eager,
Beautiful, too, I think,
(Although I cannot see it clearly)
It is, by right of its own being,
One with all lovely, youthful things;
And they, its age-old kindred,
Welcome it
Saying, 'Come, you too are one of us!'

. . . . . . .

by Isabel Ecclestone Mackay.

Dream-Land (Ii)

When in my dreams thy lovely face,
Smiles with unwonted tender grace,
Grudge not the precious seldom cheer;
I know full well, my lady dear!
It is no boon of thine.
In thy sweet sanctuary of sleep,
If my sad sprite should kneeling weep,
Suffer its speechless worship there;
Thou know'st full well, my lady fair!
It is no fault of mine.

by Frances Anne Kemble.

Lying alone I dreamed a dream last night:
Methought that Joy had come to comfort me
For all the past, its suffering and slight,
Yet in my heart I felt this could not be.
All that he said unreal seemed and strange,
Too beautiful to last beyond to-morrow;
Then suddenly his features seemed to change,
The mask of joy dropped from the face of Sorrow.

by Madison Julius Cawein.

When I Would Imagine

When I would image her features,
Comes up a shrouded head:
I touch the outlines, shrinking;
She seems of the wandering dead.

But when love asks for nothing,
And lies on his bed of snow,
The face slips under my eyelids,
All in its living glow.

Like a dark cathedral city,
Whose spires, and domes, and towers
Quiver in violet lightnings,
My soul basks on for hours.

by George Meredith.

On that bold hill, against a broad blue stream,
stood Arthur Phillip on a day of dream;
what time the mists of morning westward rolled
and heaven flowered on a bay of gold.
Here, in the hour that shines and sounds afar,
flamed first Old England's banner like a star;
Here in a time august with prayer and praise,
was born the nation of these splendid days,
and here, this land's majestic yesterday
of immemorial silence died away

by Henry Kendall.

The Dream And The Cup

Here my fancy finished; so,
Dreaming, I could clearly see
How he galloped. This was no
Spectacle of misery.
There I gazed, upon my pet
Leading ev'ry other horse.
I can see the picture yet.
Later I was at the course.
I can see the picture yet:
Leading ev'ry other horse.
There I gazed upon my pet
Spectacle of misery!
How he galloped! This was no
Dreaming! I could clearly see
Here, my fancy finished - so!

by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis.

The Nearest Dream Recedes, Unrealized.

The nearest dream recedes, unrealized.
The heaven we chase
Like the June bee
Before the school-boy
Invites the race;
Stoops to an easy clover
Dips--evades--teases--deploys;
Then to the royal clouds
Lifts his light pinnace
Heedless of the boy
Staring, bewildered, at the mocking sky.

Homesick for steadfast honey,
Ah! the bee flies not
That brews that rare variety.

by Emily Dickinson.

Her Sweet Weight On My Heart A Night

518

Her sweet Weight on my Heart a Night
Had scarcely deigned to lie—
When, stirring, for Belief's delight,
My Bride had slipped away—

If 'twas a Dream—made solid—just
The Heaven to confirm—
Or if Myself were dreamed of Her—
The power to presume—

With Him remain—who unto Me—
Gave—even as to All—
A Fiction superseding Faith—
By so much—as 'twas real—

by Emily Dickinson.

On The Threshold

O God, my dream! I dreamed that you were dead;
Your mother hung above the couch and wept
Whereon you lay all white, and garlanded
With blooms of waxen whiteness. I had crept
Up to your chamber-door, which stood ajar,
And in the doorway watched you from afar,
Nor dared advance to kiss your lips and brow.
I had no part nor lot in you, as now;
Death had not broken between us the old bar;
Nor torn from out my heart the old, cold sense
Of your misprision and my impotence.

by Amy Levy.

A Ghost And A Dream

Rain will fall on the fading flowers,
Winds will blow through the dripping tree,
When Fall leads in her tattered Hours
With Death to keep them company.
All night long in the weeping weather,
All night long in the garden grey,
A ghost and a dream will talk together
And sad are the things they will have to say:
Old sad things of the bough that's broken;
Heartbreak things of the leaf that's dead;
Old sad things no tongue hath spoken;
Sorrowful things no man hath said.

by Madison Julius Cawein.

Was It The Sun That Broke My Dream

Was it the sun that broke my dream
or was't the dazzle of thy hair
caught where our olden meadows seem
themselves again and yet more fair?
Ah, sun that woke me, limpid stream,
then in spring-mornings' rapture of air!
Was it the sun that broke my dream
or was 't the dazzle of thy hair?
And didst not thou beside me gleam,
brought hither by a tender care
at least my slumbering grief to share?
Are only the cold seas supreme?
Was it the sun that broke my dream?

by Christopher John Brennan.

We Dream—it Is Good We Are Dreaming

531

We dream—it is good we are dreaming—
It would hurt us—were we awake—
But since it is playing—kill us,
And we are playing—shriek—

What harm? Men die—externally—
It is a truth—of Blood—
But we—are dying in Drama—
And Drama—is never dead—

Cautious—We jar each other—
And either—open the eyes—
Lest the Phantasm—prove the Mistake—
And the livid Surprise

Cool us to Shafts of Granite—
With just an Age—and Name—
And perhaps a phrase in Egyptian—
It's prudenter—to dream—

by Emily Dickinson.

I was your lover long ago, sweet June,
Ere life grew hard; I am your lover still,
And follow gladly to the wondrous tune
You pipe on golden reeds to vale and hill.
I am your lover still; to me you seem
To hold the fragrance of the joys long
dead,
The brightness and the beauty of the dream
We dreamed in youth, to hold the tears
we shed,
The laughter of our lips, the faith that lies
Back in that season dear to every heart,
Life's springtime, when God's earth and
God's blue skies
Are, measured by our glance, not far apart.

by Jean Blewett.

A Day At Tivoli - Epilogue

Farewell, Romantic Tivoli!
With all thy pleasant out-door time;
For now, again, we cross the sea,
To house us in our northern clime.

Since Love and Duty both advise
No longer, even here, to roam;
Nor all too slackly hold the ties,
That cluster round the heart of home.
And bid us find old feelings there;
And our own native pleasures woo;
Nor muse, as now, (how sweet soe'er
The musing be)—but plan—and do.

And yet, in many an interval,
How oft, Beloved Tivoli!
Shall Fancy hear thy waters fall;
And Memory come—to dream with Thee.

by John Kenyon.

A Twilight Fancy

Dear, give me the tips of your fingers
To hold in this scented gloom,
' Mid the sighs of the dying roses,
That steal through the breeze-swept room ;

I would have you but lightly touch me,
A phantom might stir the dress,
In its passing, of some lost lover
With just such a faint caress;

Or a butterfly wan with summer
Brush thus with his down-flecked wings
The bells of the altar lilies
He touches, and lightly rings.

So give me the tips of your fingers,
Not your hand, lest I break the spell
Of the moment with too much passion,
And lose what I love so well.

by Radclyffe Hall.

All the night long you come to me in dreams,
My lady dear! Ah, wherefore do you so?
Surely it is because you do not know
What tender mercy from your sweet face streams
When thus you visit me, and for awhile
Lift off the load of my great misery
With the compassionate blessing of your smile:
Then I awake for joy, and bitterly
Weep that I did awake; meantime, perchance,
My image, all unconscious, through the trance,
Of your deep slumber has had leave to glide
A senseless phantom, even to your side.
Oh, tell me, by these burning tears I weep,
Whom do you see, my lady, while you sleep?

by Frances Anne Kemble.

Not all the brilliant beauties I have seen,
Mid the gay splendors of some Southern hall,
In jewelled grandeur, or in plainest mien,
Did so my fancy and my heart enthral,
As doth this noble woman, Nature's queen!
Such hearty greeting from her lips did fall,
And I ennobled was through her esteem;
At once made sharer of her confidence,
As by enchantment of some rapturous dream;
With subtler vision gifted, finer sense,
She loosed my tongue's refraining diffidence,
And softer accents lent our varying theme:
So much my Lady others doth surpass,
I read them all through her transparent glass.

by Amos Bronson Alcott.

On Visiting The Tomb Of Burns

The town, the churchyard, and the setting sun,
The clouds, the trees, the rounded hills all seem,
Though beautiful, cold- strange- as in a dream
I dreamed long ago, now new begun.
The short-liv'd, paly summer is but won
From winter's ague for one hour's gleam;
Through sapphire warm their stars do never beam:
All is cold Beauty; pain is never done.
For who has mind to relish, Minos-wise,
The real of Beauty, free from that dead hue
Sickly imagination and sick pride
Cast wan upon it? Burns! with honour due
I oft have honour'd thee. Great shadow, hide
Thy face; I sin against thy native skies.

by John Keats.

Unstable dream, according to the place,
Be steadfast once, or else at least be true.
By tasted sweetness make me not to rue
The sudden loss of thy false feignèd grace.
By good respect in such a dangerous case
Thou broughtest not her into this tossing mew
But madest my sprite live, my care to renew,
My body in tempest her succour to embrace.
The body dead, the sprite had his desire,
Painless was th'one, th'other in delight.
Why then, alas, did it not keep it right,
Returning, to leap into the fire?
And where it was at wish, it could not remain,
Such mocks of dreams they turn to deadly pain.

by David McKee Wright.

As Hermes once took to his feathers light
When lulled Argus, baffled, swoon'd and slept,
So on a Delphic reed my idle spright
So play'd, so charm'd, so conquer'd, so bereft
The dragon-world of all its hundred eyes,
And, seeing it asleep, so fled away:
Not to pure Ida with its snow-cold skies,
Nor unto Tempe where Jove griev'd a day;
But to that second circle of sad hell,
Where 'mid the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw
Of rain and hail-stones, lovers need not tell
Their sorrows. Pale were the sweet lips I saw,
Pale were the lips I kiss'd, and fair the form
I floated with, about that melancholy storm.

by John Keats.

I saw the Summer through her garden go,
A marigold hung in her auburn hair,
Her brown arms heaped with harvest, and the lair
Of poppied plenty, like the peach aglow:
Among the pepper-pods, in scarlet row,
And golden gourds and melons, where the pear
And quince hung heavy, in the languid air
She laid her down and let her eyes close slow.
Not so much breath as blows the thistle by,
Not so much sound as rounds a cricket's croon,
Was in her sleep, and yet about her seemed
The long dark sweep of rain, the whirling cry
And roar of winds beneath a stormy moon.
Was it a dream of Autumn that she dreamed?

by Madison Julius Cawein.

A Dream, After Reading Dante's Episode Of Paolo And Francesca

As Hermes once took to his feathers light,
When lulled Argus, baffled, swooned and slept,
So on a Delphic reed, my idle spright
So played, so charmed, so conquered, so bereft
The dragon-world of all its hundred eyes;
And seeing it asleep, so fled away,
Not to pure Ida with its snow-cold skies,
Nor unto Tempe, where Jove grieved a day;
But to that second circle of sad Hell,
Where in the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw
Of rain and hail-stones, lovers need not tell
Their sorrows. Pale were the sweet lips I saw,
Pale were the lips I kissed, and fair the form
I floated with, about that melancholy storm.

by John Keats.

Written In The Cottage Where Burns Was Born

This mortal body of a thousand days
Now fills, O Burns, a space in thine own room,
Where thou didst dream alone on budded bays,
Happy and thoughtless of thy day of doom!
My pulse is warm with thine old barley-bree,
My head is light with pledging a great soul,
My eyes are wandering, and I cannot see,
Fancy is dead and drunken at its goal;
Yet can I stamp my foot upon thy floor,
Yet can I ope thy window-sash to find
The meadow thou hast tramped o'er and o'er,--
Yet can I think of thee till thought is blind,--
Yet can I gulp a bumper to thy name,--
O smile among the shades, for this is fame!

by John Keats.

Sonnet. A Dream, After Reading Dante's Episode Of Paulo And Francesca

As Hermes once took to his feathers light,
When lulled Argus, baffled, swooned and slept,
So on a Delphic reed, my idle spright
So played, so charmed, so conquered, so bereft
The dragon-world of all its hundred eyes;
And seeing it asleep, so fled away--
Not to pure Ida with its snow-cold skies,
Nor unto Tempe, where Jove grieved a day;
But to that second circle of sad Hell,
Where in the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw
Of rain and hail-stones, lovers need not tell
Their sorrows. Pale were the sweet lips I saw,
Pale were the lips I kissed, and fair the form
I floated with, about that melancholy storm.

by John Keats.

Sonnet Xlvii: To Fancy

Thee, Queen of Shadows! -- shall I still invoke,
Still love the scenes thy sportive pencil drew,
When on mine eyes the early radiance broke
Which shew'd the beauteous rather than the true!
Alas! long since those glowing tints are dead,
And now 'tis thine in darkest hues to dress
The spot where pale Experience hangs her head
O'er the sad grave of murder'd Happiness!
Thro' thy false medium, then, no longer view'd,
May fancied pain and fancied pleasure fly,
And I, as from me all thy dreams depart,
Be to my wayward destiny subdued:
Nor seek perfection with a poet's eye,
Nor suffer anguish with a poet's heart!

by Charlotte Smith.

I dreamed so dear a dream of you last night!
I thought you came. I was so glad, so gay,
I whispered, 'Those were foolish words to say;
I meant them not. I cannot bear the sight
Of our dear face. I cannot meet the light
Of your dear eyes upon me. Sit, I pray-
Sit here beside me; turn your look away,
And lay your cheek on mine,' Till morning bright
We sat so, and we did not speak. I knew
All was forgiven, so nestled there
With your arms round. Swift the sweet hours flew.
At last I waked, and sought you everywhere.
How long, dear, think you, that my glad cheek will
Burn-as it burns with our cheek's pressure still?

by Helen Hunt Jackson.

O fancy, if thou flyest, come back anon,
Thy fluttering wings are soft as love's first word,
And fragrant as the feathers of that bird,
Which feeds upon the budded cinnamon.
I ask thee not to work, or sigh—play on,
From nought that was not, was, or is, deterred;
The flax that Old Fate spun thy flights have stirred,
And waved memorial grass of Marathon.
Play, but be gentle, not as on that day
I saw thee running down the rims of doom
With stars thou hadst been stealing—while they lay
Smothered in light and blue—clasped to thy breast;
Bring rather to me in the firelit room
A netted halcyon bird to sing of rest.

by Jean Ingelow.

A Dream Of England

I had a dream of England. Wild and weird,
The billows ravened round her, and the wrack,
Darkening and dwindling, blotted out the track,
Then flashed on her a bolt that scorched and seared.
She, writhing in her ruin, rolled, and reared,
Then headlonged unto doom, that drove her back
To welter on the waters, blind and black,
A homeless hulk, a derelict unsteered.
Wailing I woke, and through the dawn descried,
Throned on the waves that threatened to o'erwhelm,
The England of my dream resplendent ride,
And armoured Wisdom, sovran at the helm,
Through foaming furrows of the future guide
To wider empire a majestic Realm.

by Alfred Austin.

Pleasures Of Fancy

A path, old tree, goes by thee crooking on,
And through this little gate that claps and bangs
Against thy rifted trunk, what steps hath gone?
Though but a lonely way, yet mystery hangs
Oer crowds of pastoral scenes recordless here.
The boy might climb the nest in thy young boughs
That's slept half an eternity; in fear
The herdsman may have left his startled cows
For shelter when heaven's thunder voice was near;
Here too the woodman on his wallet laid
For pillow may have slept an hour away;
And poet pastoral, lover of the shade,
Here sat and mused half some long summer day
While some old shepherd listened to the lay.

by John Clare.

In youth, when blood was warm and fancy high,
I mocked at death. How many a quaint conceit
I wove about his veiled head and feet,
Vaunting aloud, Why need we dread to die?
But now, enthralled by deep solemnity,
Death's pale phantasmal shade I darkly greet:
Ghostlike it haunts the hearth, it haunts the street,
Or drearier makes drear midnight's mystery.
Ah, soul-perplexing vision! oft I deem
That antique myth is true which pictured death
A masked and hideous form all shrank to see;
But at the last slow ebb of mortal breath,
Death, his mask melting like a nightmare dream,
Smiled,—heaven's high-priest of Immortality!

by Paul Hamilton Hayne.

Beloved, those who moan of love's brief day
Shall find but little grace with me, I guess,
Who know too well this passion's tenderness
To deem that it shall lightly pass away,
A moment's interlude in life's dull play;
Though many loves have lingered to distress,
So shall not ours, sweet Lady, ne'ertheless,
But deepen with us till both heads be grey.

For perfect love is like a fair green plant,
That fades not with its blossoms, but lives on,
And gentle lovers shall not come to want,
Though fancy with its first mad dream be gone;
Sweet is the flower, whose radiant glory flies,
But sweeter still the green that never dies.

by Archibald Lampman.

WHERE the wild woods and pathless forests frown,
The darkling Pilgrim seeks his unknown way,
Till on the grass he throws him weary down,
To wait in broken sleep the dawn of day:
Through boughs just waving in the silent air,
With pale capricious light the summer moon
Chequers his humid couch; while Fancy there,
That loves to wanton in the night's deep noon,
Calls from the mossy roots and fountain edge
Fair visionary Nymphs that haunt the shade,
Or Naiads rising from the whispering sedge:
And, 'mid the beauteous group, his dear loved maid
Seems beckoning him with smiles to join the train:
Then, starting from his dream, he feels his woes again!

by Charlotte Smith.

The Dream Of Those Days

The dream of those days when first I sung thee is o'er
Thy triumph hath stain'd the charm thy sorrows then wore;
And even the light which Hope once shed o'er thy chains,
Alas, not a gleam to grace thy freedom remains.

Say, is it that slavery sunk so deep in thy heart,
That still the dark brand is there, though chainless thou art;
And Freedom's sweet fruit, for which thy spirit long burn'd,
Now, reaching at last thy lip, to ashes hath turn'd?

Up Liberty's steep by Truth and Eloquence led,
With eyes on her temple fix'd, how proud was thy tread!
Ah, better thou ne'er hadst lived that summit to gain,
Denied in the porch, than thus dishonour the fane.

by Thomas Moore.

All trembling in my arms Aminta lay,
Defending of the bliss I strove to take;
Raising my rapture by her kind delay,
Her force so charming was and weak.
The soft resistance did betray the grant,
While I pressed on the heaven of my desires;
Her rising breasts with nimbler motions pant;
Her dying eyes assume new fires.
Now to the height of languishment she grows,
And still her looks new charms put on;
– Now the last mystery of Love she knows,
We sigh, and kiss: I waked, and all was done.

`Twas but a dream, yet by my heart I knew,
Which still was panting, part of it was true:
Oh how I strove the rest to have believed;
Ashamed and angry to be undeceived!

by Aphra Behn.

Life Is But A Dream

A boat, beneath a sunny sky
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear

Long has paled that sunny sky;
Echoes fade and memories die;
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die;

Ever drifting down the stream
Lingering in the golden gleam
Life, what is it but a dream?

by Lewis Carroll.

Spare us our Dreams, O God! The dream we dreamed
When we were children and dwelt near the Land
Of Faery, which our Childhood often planned
To reach, beholding where its towers gleamed:
The dream our Youth put seaward with; that streamed
With Love's wild hair, or beckoned with the hand
Of stout Adventure: Then that dream which spanned
Our Manhood's skies with fame; that shone, it seemed,
The one fixed star of purpose, fair and far,
The dream of great achievement, in the heaven
Of our desire, and gave the soul strong wings:
Then that last dream, through which these others are
Made true: The dream that holds us at Life's even,
The mortal hope of far immortal things.

by Madison Julius Cawein.