[ { "title": "Dreams", "author": "Anne Bronte", "lines": [ "While on my lonely couch I lie,", "I seldom feel myself alone,", "For fancy fills my dreaming eye", "With scenes and pleasures of its own.", "Then I may cherish at my breast", "An infant's form beloved and fair,", "May smile and soothe it into rest", "With all a Mother's fondest care.", "", "How sweet to feel its helpless form", "Depending thus on me alone!", "And while I hold it safe and warm", "What bliss to think it is my own!", "", "And glances then may meet my eyes", "That daylight never showed to me;", "What raptures in my bosom rise,", "Those earnest looks of love to see,", "", "To feel my hand so kindly prest,", "To know myself beloved at last,", "To think my heart has found a rest,", "My life of solitude is past!", "", "But then to wake and find it flown,", "The dream of happiness destroyed,", "To find myself unloved, alone,", "What tongue can speak the dreary void?", "", "A heart whence warm affections flow,", "Creator, thou hast given to me,", "And am I only thus to know", "How sweet the joys of love would be?" ], "linecount": "28" }, { "title": "The dreams", "author": "Eugene Field", "lines": [ "Two dreams came down to earth one night", "From the realm of mist and dew;", "One was a dream of the old, old days,", "And one was a dream of the new.", "", "One was a dream of a shady lane", "That led to the pickerel pond", "Where the willows and rushes bowed themselves", "To the brown old hills beyond.", "", "And the people that peopled the old-time dream", "Were pleasant and fair to see,", "And the dreamer he walked with them again", "As often of old walked he.", "", "Oh, cool was the wind in the shady lane", "That tangled his curly hair!", "Oh, sweet was the music the robins made", "To the springtime everywhere!", "", "Was it the dew the dream had brought", "From yonder midnight skies,", "Or was it tears from the dear, dead years", "That lay in the dreamer's eyes?", "", "The other dream ran fast and free,", "As the moon benignly shed", "Her golden grace on the smiling face", "In the little trundle-bed.", "", "For 't was a dream of times to come--", "Of the glorious noon of day--", "Of the summer that follows the careless spring", "When the child is done with play.", "", "And 't was a dream of the busy world", "Where valorous deeds are done;", "Of battles fought in the cause of right,", "And of victories nobly won.", "", "It breathed no breath of the dear old home", "And the quiet joys of youth;", "It gave no glimpse of the good old friends", "Or the old-time faith and truth.", "", "But 't was a dream of youthful hopes,", "And fast and free it ran,", "And it told to a little sleeping child", "Of a boy become a man!", "", "These were the dreams that came one night", "To earth from yonder sky;", "These were the dreams two dreamers dreamed--", "My little boy and I.", "", "And in our hearts my boy and I", "Were glad that it was so;", "He loved to dream of days to come,", "And I of long ago.", "", "So from our dreams my boy and I", "Unwillingly awoke,", "But neither of his precious dream", "Unto the other spoke.", "", "Yet of the love we bore those dreams", "Gave each his tender sign;", "For there was triumph in his eyes--", "And there were tears in mine!" ], "linecount": "56" }, { "title": "Sea Dreams", "author": "Lord Alfred Tennyson", "lines": [ "A city clerk, but gently born and bred;", "His wife, an unknown artist's orphan child--", "One babe was theirs, a Margaret, three years old:", "They, thinking that her clear germander eye", "Droopt in the giant-factoried city-gloom,", "Came, with a month's leave given them, to the sea:", "For which his gains were dock'd, however small:", "Small were his gains, and hard his work; besides,", "Their slender household fortunes (for the man", "Had risk'd his little) like the little thrift,", "Trembled in perilous places o'er a deep:", "And oft, when sitting all alone, his face", "Would darken, as he cursed his credulousness,", "And that one unctuous mount which lured him, rogue,", "To buy strange shares in some Peruvian mine.", "Now seaward-bound for health they gain'd a coast,", "All sand and cliff and deep-inrunning cave,", "At close of day; slept, woke, and went the next,", "The Sabbath, pious variers from the church,", "To chapel; where a heated pulpiteer,", "Not preaching simple Christ to simple men,", "Announced the coming doom, and fulminated", "Against the scarlet woman and her creed:", "For sideways up he swung his arms, and shriek'd", "`Thus, thus with violence,' ev'n as if he held", "The Apocalyptic millstone, and himself", "Were that great Angel; `Thus with violence", "Shall Babylon be cast into the sea;", "Then comes the close.' The gentle-hearted wife", "Sat shuddering at the ruin of a world;", "He at his own: but when the wordy storm", "Had ended, forth they came and paced the shore,", "Ran in and out the long sea-framing caves,", "Drank the large air, and saw, but scarce believed", "(The sootflake of so many a summer still", "Clung to their fancies) that they saw, the sea.", "So now on sand they walk'd, and now on cliff,", "Lingering about the thymy promontories,", "Till all the sails were darken'd in the west,", "And rosed in the east: then homeward and to bed:", "Where she, who kept a tender Christian hope", "Haunting a holy text, and still to that", "Returning, as the bird returns, at night,", "`Let not the sun go down upon your wrath,'", "Said, `Love, forgive him:' but he did not speak;", "And silenced by that silence lay the wife,", "Remembering her dear Lord who died for all,", "And musing on the little lives of men,", "And how they mar this little by their feuds.", "", "But while the two were sleeping, a full tide", "Rose with ground-swell, which, on the foremost rocks", "Touching, upjetted in spirts of wild sea-smoke,", "And scaled in sheets of wasteful foam, and fell", "In vast sea-cataracts--ever and anon", "Dead claps of thunder from within the cliffs", "Heard thro' the living roar. At this the babe,", "Their Margaret cradled near them, wail'd and woke", "The mother, and the father suddenly cried,", "`A wreck, a wreck!' then turn'd, and groaning said,", "", "`Forgive! How many will say, \"forgive,\" and find", "A sort of absolution in the sound", "To hate a little longer! No; the sin", "That neither God nor man can well forgive,", "Hypocrisy, I saw it in him at once.", "Is it so true that second thoughts are best?", "Not first, and third, which are a riper first?", "Too ripe, too late! they come too late for use.", "Ah love, there surely lives in man and beast", "Something divine to warn them of their foes:", "And such a sense, when first I fronted him,", "Said, \"trust him not;\" but after, when I came", "To know him more, I lost it, knew him less;", "Fought with what seem'd my own uncharity;", "Sat at his table; drank his costly wines;", "Made more and more allowance for his talk;", "Went further, fool! and trusted him with all,", "All my poor scrapings from a dozen years", "Of dust and deskwork: there is no such mine,", "None; but a gulf of ruin, swallowing gold,", "Not making. Ruin'd! ruin'd! the sea roars", "Ruin: a fearful night!'", "", "`Not fearful; fair,'", "Said the good wife, `if every star in heaven", "Can make it fair: you do but bear the tide.", "Had you ill dreams?'", "", "`O yes,' he said, `I dream'd", "Of such a tide swelling toward the land,", "And I from out the boundless outer deep", "Swept with it to the shore, and enter'd one", "Of those dark caves that run beneath the cliffs.", "I thought the motion of the boundless deep", "Bore through the cave, and I was heaved upon it", "In darkness: then I saw one lovely star", "Larger and larger. \"What a world,\" I thought,", "\"To live in!\" but in moving I found", "Only the landward exit of the cave,", "Bright with the sun upon the stream beyond:", "And near the light a giant woman sat,", "All over earthy, like a piece of earth,", "A pickaxe in her hand: then out I slipt", "Into a land all of sun and blossom, trees", "As high as heaven, and every bird that sings:", "And here the night-light flickering in my eyes", "Awoke me.'", "", "`That was then your dream,' she said,", "`Not sad, but sweet.'", "", "`So sweet, I lay,' said he,", "`And mused upon it, drifting up the stream", "In fancy, till I slept again, and pieced", "The broken vision; for I dream'd that still", "The motion of the great deep bore me on,", "And that the woman walk'd upon the brink:", "I wonder'd at her strength, and ask'd her of it:", "\"It came,\" she said, \"by working in the mines:\"", "O then to ask her of my shares, I thought;", "And ask'd; but not a word; she shook her head.", "And then the motion of the current ceased,", "And there was rolling thunder; and we reach'd", "A mountain, like a wall of burs and thorns;", "But she with her strong feet up the steep hill", "Trod out a path: I follow'd; and at top", "She pointed seaward: there a fleet of glass,", "That seem'd a fleet of jewels under me,", "Sailing along before a gloomy cloud", "That not one moment ceased to thunder, past", "In sunshine: right across its track there lay,", "Down in the water, a long reef of gold,", "Or what seem'd gold: and I was glad at first", "To think that in our often-ransack'd world", "Still so much gold was left; and then I fear'd", "Lest the gay navy there should splinter on it,", "And fearing waved my arm to warn them off;", "An idle signal, for the brittle fleet", "(I thought I could have died to save it) near'd,", "Touch'd, clink'd, and clash'd, and vanish'd, and I woke,", "I heard the clash so clearly. Now I see", "My dream was Life; the woman honest Work;", "And my poor venture but a fleet of glass", "Wreck'd on a reef of visionary gold.'", "", "`Nay,' said the kindly wife to comfort him,", "`You raised your arm, you tumbled down and broke", "The glass with little Margaret's medicine it it;", "And, breaking that, you made and broke your dream:", "A trifle makes a dream, a trifle breaks.'", "", "`No trifle,' groan'd the husband; `yesterday", "I met him suddenly in the street, and ask'd", "That which I ask'd the woman in my dream.", "Like her, he shook his head. \"Show me the books!\"", "He dodged me with a long and loose account.", "\"The books, the books!\" but he, he could not wait,", "Bound on a matter he of life and death:", "When the great Books (see Daniel seven and ten)", "Were open'd, I should find he meant me well;", "And then began to bloat himself, and ooze", "All over with the fat affectionate smile", "That makes the widow lean. \"My dearest friend,", "Have faith, have faith! We live by faith,\" said he;", "\"And all things work together for the good", "Of those\"--it makes me sick to quote him--last", "Gript my hand hard, and with God-bless-you went.", "I stood like one that had received a blow:", "I found a hard friend in his loose accounts,", "A loose one in the hard grip of his hand,", "A curse in his God-bless-you: then my eyes", "Pursued him down the street, and far away,", "Among the honest shoulders of the crowd,", "Read rascal in the motions of his back,", "And scoundrel in the supple-sliding knee.'", "", "`Was he so bound, poor soul?' said the good wife;", "`So are we all: but do not call him, love,", "Before you prove him, rogue, and proved, forgive.", "His gain is loss; for he that wrongs his friend", "Wrongs himself more, and ever bears about", "A silent court of justice in his breast,", "Himself the judge and jury, and himself", "The prisoner at the bar, ever condemn'd:", "And that drags down his life: then comes what comes", "Hereafter: and he meant, he said he meant,", "Perhaps he meant, or partly meant, you well.'", "", "` \"With all his conscience and one eye askew\"--", "Love, let me quote these lines, that you may learn", "A man is likewise counsel for himself,", "Too often, in that silent court of yours--", "\"With all his conscience and one eye askew,", "So false, he partly took himself for true;", "Whose pious talk, when most his heart was dry,", "Made wet the crafty crowsfoot round his eye;", "Who, never naming God except for gain,", "So never took that useful name in vain;", "Made Him his catspaw and the Cross his tool,", "And Christ the bait to trap his dupe and fool;", "Nor deeds of gift, but gifts of grace he forged,", "And snakelike slimed his victim ere he gorged;", "And oft at Bible meetings, o'er the rest", "Arising, did his holy oily best,", "Dropping the too rough H in Hell and Heaven,", "To spread the Word by which himself had thriven.\"", "How like you this old satire?'", "", "`Nay,' she said", "`I loathe it: he had never kindly heart,", "Nor ever cared to better his own kind,", "Who first wrote satire, with no pity in it.", "But will you hear MY dream, for I had one", "That altogether went to music? Still", "It awed me.'", "", "Then she told it, having dream'd", "Of that same coast.", "", "--But round the North, a light,", "A belt, it seem'd, of luminous vapor, lay,", "And ever in it a low musical note", "Swell'd up and died; and, as it swell'd, a ridge", "Of breaker issued from the belt, and still", "Grew with the growing note, and when the note", "Had reach'd a thunderous fullness, on those cliffs", "Broke, mixt with awful light (the same as that", "Living within the belt) whereby she saw", "That all those lines of cliffs were cliffs no more,", "But huge cathedral fronts of every age,", "Grave, florid, stern, as far as eye could see.", "One after one: and then the great ridge drew,", "Lessening to the lessening music, back,", "And past into the belt and swell'd again", "Slowly to music: ever when it broke", "The statues, king or saint, or founder fell;", "Then from the gaps and chasms of ruin left", "Came men and women in dark clusters round,", "Some crying, \"Set them up! they shall not fall!\"", "And others \"Let them lie, for they have fall'n.\"", "And still they strove and wrangled: and she grieved", "In her strange dream, she knew not why, to find", "Their wildest wailings never out of tune", "With that sweet note; and ever as their shrieks", "Ran highest up the gamut, that great wave", "Returning, while none mark'd it, on the crowd", "Broke, mixt with awful light, and show'd their eyes", "Glaring, and passionate looks, and swept away", "The men of flesh and blood, and men of stone,", "To the waste deeps together.", "", "`Then I fixt", "My wistful eyes on two fair images,", "Both crown'd with stars and high among the stars,--", "The Virgin Mother standing with her child", "High up on one of those dark minster-fronts--", "Till she began to totter, and the child", "Clung to the mother, and sent out a cry", "Which mixt with little Margaret's, and I woke,", "And my dream awed me:--well--but what are dreams?", "Yours came but from the breaking of a glass,", "And mine but from the crying of a child.'", "", "`Child? No!' said he, `but this tide's roar, and his,", "Our Boanerges with his threats of doom,", "And loud-lung'd Antibabylonianisms", "(Altho' I grant but little music there)", "Went both to make your dream: but if there were", "A music harmonizing our wild cries,", "Sphere-music such as that you dream'd about,", "Why, that would make our passions far too like", "The discords dear to the musician. No--", "One shriek of hate would jar all the hymns of heaven:", "True Devils with no ear, they howl in tune", "With nothing but the Devil!'", "", "`\"True\" indeed!", "One of our town, but later by an hour", "Here than ourselves, spoke with me on the shore;", "While you were running down the sands, and made", "The dimpled flounce of the sea-furbelow flap,", "Good man, to please the child. She brought strange news.", "Why were you silent when I spoke to-night?", "I had set my heart on your forgiving him", "Before you knew. We MUST forgive the dead.'", "", "`Dead! who is dead?'", "", "`The man your eye pursued.", "A little after you had parted with him,", "He suddenly dropt dead of heart-disease.'", "", "`Dead? he? of heart-disease? what heart had he", "To die of? dead!'", "", "`Ah, dearest, if there be", "A devil in man, there is an angel too,", "And if he did that wrong you charge him with,", "His angel broke his heart. But your rough voice", "(You spoke so loud) has roused the child again.", "Sleep, little birdie, sleep! will she not sleep", "Without her \"little birdie?\" well then, sleep,", "And I will sing you \"birdie.\"'", "", "Saying this,", "The woman half turn'd round from him she loved,", "Left him one hand, and reaching thro' the night", "Her other, found (for it was close beside)", "And half embraced the basket cradle-head", "With one soft arm, which, like the pliant bough", "That moving moves the nest and nestling, sway'd", "The cradle, while she sang this baby song.", "", "What does the little birdie say", "In her nest at peep of day?", "Let me fly, says little birdie,", "Mother, let me fly away.", "Birdie, rest a little longer,", "Till the little wings are stronger.", "So she rests a little longer,", "Then she flies away.", "", "What does little baby say,", "In her bed at peep of day?", "Baby says, like little birdie,", "Let me rise and fly away.", "Baby, sleep a little longer,", "Till the little limbs are stronger.", "If she sleeps a little longer,", "Baby too shall fly away.", "", "`She sleeps: let us too, let all evil, sleep.", "He also sleeps--another sleep than ours.", "He can do no more wrong: forgive him, dear,", "And I shall sleep the sounder!'", "", "Then the man,", "`His deeds yet live, the worst is yet to come.", "Yet let your sleep for this one night be sound:", "I do forgive him!'", "", "`Thanks, my love,' she said,", "`Your own will be the sweeter,' and they slept." ], "linecount": "318" }, { "title": "The Old Man Dreams", "author": "Oliver Wendell Holmes", "lines": [ "OH for one hour of youthful joy!", "Give back my twentieth spring!", "I'd rather laugh, a bright-haired boy,", "Than reign, a gray-beard king.", "", "Off with the spoils of wrinkled age!", "Away with Learning's crown!", "Tear out life's Wisdom-written page,", "And dash its trophies down!", "", "One moment let my life-blood stream", "From boyhood's fount of flame!", "Give me one giddy, reeling dream", "Of life all love and fame!", "", ". . . . .", "", "My listening angel heard the prayer,", "And, calmly smiling, said,", "\"If I but touch thy silvered hair", "Thy hasty wish hath sped.", "", "\"But is there nothing in thy track,", "To bid thee fondly stay,", "While the swift seasons hurry back", "To find the wished-for day?\"", "", "\"Ah, truest soul of womankind!", "Without thee what were life ?", "One bliss I cannot leave behind:", "I'll take-- my-- precious-- wife!\"", "", "The angel took a sapphire pen", "And wrote in rainbow dew,", "The man would be a boy again,", "And be a husband too!", "", "\"And is there nothing yet unsaid,", "Before the change appears?", "Remember, all their gifts have fled", "With those dissolving years.\"", "", "\"Why, yes;\" for memory would recall", "My fond paternal joys;", "\"I could not bear to leave them all--", "I'll take-- my-- girl-- and-- boys.\"", "", "The smiling angel dropped his pen,--", "\"Why, this will never do;", "The man would be a boy again,", "And be a father too!\"", "", ". . . . .", "", "And so I laughed,-- my laughter woke", "The household with its noise,--", "And wrote my dream, when morning broke,", "To please the gray-haired boys." ], "linecount": "46" }, { "title": "June Dreams, In January", "author": "Sidney Lanier", "lines": [ "\"So pulse, and pulse, thou rhythmic-hearted Noon", "That liest, large-limbed, curved along the hills,", "In languid palpitation, half a-swoon", "With ardors and sun-loves and subtle thrills;", "", "\"Throb, Beautiful! while the fervent hours exhale", "As kisses faint-blown from thy finger-tips", "Up to the sun, that turn him passion-pale", "And then as red as any virgin's lips.", "", "\"O tender Darkness, when June-day hath ceased,", "-- Faint Odor from the day-flower's crushing born,", "-- Dim, visible Sigh out of the mournful East", "That cannot see her lord again till morn:", "", "\"And many leaves, broad-palmed towards the sky", "To catch the sacred raining of star-light:", "And pallid petals, fain, all fain to die,", "Soul-stung by too keen passion of the night:", "", "\"And short-breath'd winds, under yon gracious moon", "Doing mild errands for mild violets,", "Or carrying sighs from the red lips of June", "What aimless way the odor-current sets:", "", "\"And stars, ringed glittering in whorls and bells,", "Or bent along the sky in looped star-sprays,", "Or vine-wound, with bright grapes in panicles,", "Or bramble-tangled in a sweetest maze,", "", "\"Or lying like young lilies in a lake", "About the great white Lotus of the moon,", "Or blown and drifted, as if winds should shake", "Star blossoms down from silver stems too soon,", "", "\"Or budding thick about full open stars,", "Or clambering shyly up cloud-lattices,", "Or trampled pale in the red path of Mars,", "Or trim-set in quaint gardener's fantasies:", "", "\"And long June night-sounds crooned among the leaves,", "And whispered confidence of dark and green,", "And murmurs in old moss about old eaves,", "And tinklings floating over water-sheen!\"", "", "Then he that wrote laid down his pen and sighed;", "And straightway came old Scorn and Bitterness,", "Like Hunnish kings out of the barbarous land,", "And camped upon the transient Italy", "That he had dreamed to blossom in his soul.", "\"I'll date this dream,\" he said; \"so: `Given, these,", "On this, the coldest night in all the year,", "From this, the meanest garret in the world,", "In this, the greatest city in the land,", "To you, the richest folk this side of death,", "By one, the hungriest poet under heaven,", "-- Writ while his candle sputtered in the gust,", "And while his last, last ember died of cold,", "And while the mortal ice i' the air made free", "Of all his bones and bit and shrunk his heart,", "And while soft Luxury made show to strike", "Her gloved hands together and to smile", "What time her weary feet unconsciously", "Trode wheels that lifted Avarice to power,", "-- And while, moreover, -- O thou God, thou God --", "His worshipful sweet wife sat still, afar,", "Within the village whence she sent him forth", "Into the town to make his name and fame,", "Waiting, all confident and proud and calm,", "Till he should make for her his name and fame,", "Waiting -- O Christ, how keen this cuts! -- large-eyed,", "With Baby Charley till her husband make", "For her and him a poet's name and fame.'", "-- Read me,\" he cried, and rose, and stamped his foot", "Impatiently at Heaven, \"read me this,\"", "(Putting th' inquiry full in the face of God)", "\"Why can we poets dream us beauty, so,", "But cannot dream us bread? Why, now, can I", "Make, aye, create this fervid throbbing June", "Out of the chill, chill matter of my soul,", "Yet cannot make a poorest penny-loaf", "Out of this same chill matter, no, not one", "For Mary though she starved upon my breast?\"", "And then he fell upon his couch, and sobbed,", "And, late, just when his heart leaned o'er", "The very edge of breaking, fain to fall,", "God sent him sleep.", "There came his room-fellow,", "Stout Dick, the painter, saw the written dream,", "Read, scratched his curly pate, smiled, winked, fell on", "The poem in big-hearted comic rage,", "Quick folded, thrust in envelope, addressed", "To him, the critic-god, that sitteth grim", "And giant-grisly on the stone causeway", "That leadeth to his magazine and fame.", "Him, by due mail, the little Dream of June", "Encountered growling, and at unawares", "Stole in upon his poem-battered soul", "So that he smiled, -- then shook his head upon 't", "-- Then growled, then smiled again, till at the last,", "As one that deadly sinned against his will,", "He writ upon the margin of the Dream", "A wondrous, wondrous word that in a day", "Did turn the fleeting song to very bread,", "-- Whereat Dick Painter leapt, the poet wept,", "And Mary slept with happy drops a-gleam", "Upon long lashes of her serene eyes", "From twentieth reading of her poet's news", "Quick-sent, \"O sweet my Sweet, to dream is power,", "And I can dream thee bread and dream thee wine,", "And I will dream thee robes and gems, dear Love,", "To clothe thy holy loveliness withal,", "And I will dream thee here to live by me,", "Thee and my little man thou hold'st at breast,", "-- Come, Name, come, Fame, and kiss my Sweetheart's feet!\"" ], "linecount": "106" }, { "title": "Dreams", "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", "lines": [ "Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!", "My spirit not awakening, till the beam", "Of an Eternity should bring the morrow.", "Yes! though that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,", "'Twere better than the cold reality", "Of waking life, to him whose heart must be,", "And hath been still, upon the lovely earth,", "A chaos of deep passion, from his birth.", "But should it be--that dream eternally", "Continuing--as dreams have been to me", "In my young boyhood--should it thus be given,", "'Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven.", "For I have revelled when the sun was bright", "I' the summer sky, in dreams of living light", "And loveliness,--have left my very heart", "Inclines of my imaginary apart", "From mine own home, with beings that have been", "Of mine own thought--what more could I have seen?", "'Twas once--and only once--and the wild hour", "From my remembrance shall not pass--some power", "Or spell had bound me--'twas the chilly wind", "Came o'er me in the night, and left behind", "Its image on my spirit--or the moon", "Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noon", "Too coldly--or the stars--howe'er it was", "That dream was that that night-wind--let it pass.", "_I have been_ happy, though in a dream.", "I have been happy--and I love the theme:", "Dreams! in their vivid coloring of life", "As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife", "Of semblance with reality which brings", "To the delirious eye, more lovely things", "Of Paradise and Love--and all my own!--", "Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known." ], "linecount": "34" } ]