A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM

Edgar Allan Poe 1809-49

Take this kiss upon the brow!

          And, in parting from you now,

          Thus much let me avow -

          You are not wrong, who deem

          That my days have been a dream;

          Yet if hope has flown away

          In a night, or in a day,

          In a vision, or in none,

          Is it therefore the less gone?

          All that we see or seem

          Is but a dream within a dream.

          I stand amid the roar

          Of a surf-tormented shore,

          And I hold within my hand

          Grains of the golden sand -

          How few! Yet how they creep

          Through my fingers to the deep,

          While I weep - while I weep!

          O God! Can I not grasp

          Them with a tighter clasp?

          O God! Can I not save

          One from the pitiless wave?

          Is all that we see or seem

          But a dream within a dream?

-o0o-

INTERLUDE

Amy Lowell  1874-1925

When I have baked white cakes

And grated green almonds to spread upon them;

When I have picked the green crowns from the strawberries

And piled them, cone-pointed, in a blue and yellow platter;

When I have smoothed the seam of the linen I have been working;

What then?

To-morrow it will be the same:

Cakes and strawberries,

And needles in and out of cloth.

If the sun is beautiful on bricks and pewter,

How much more beautiful is the moon,

Slanting down the gauffered branches of a plum-tree;

The moon,

Wavering across a bed of tulips;

The moon,

Still,

Upon your face.

You shine, Beloved,

You and the moon.

But which is the reflection?

The clock is striking eleven.

I think, when we have shut and barred the door,

The night will be dark

Outside.

-o0o-

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI

John Keats  1795-1821

Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,

Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge is withered from the lake,

And no birds sing.

Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,

So haggard and so woe-begone,

The squirrel's granary is full

And the harvest's done.

I see a lily on thy brow

With anguish moist and fever dew,

And on thy cheek a fading rose

Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,

Full beautiful, a faery's child:

Her hair was long, her foot was ligh,

And her eyes were wild.

I set her on my pacing steed,

And nothing else saw all day long;

For sideways would she lean, and sing

A faery's song.

I made a garland for her head,

And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;

She looked at me as she did love,

And made sweet moan.

She found me roots of relish sweet,

And honey wild, and manna dew,

And sure in language strange she said,

"I love thee true!"

She took me to her elfin grot,

And there she gazed and sighed deep,

And there I shut her wild, sad eyes -

So kissed to sleep.

And there we slumbered on the moss,

And there I dreamed, ah! woe betide,

The latest dream I ever dreamed

On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings, and princes too,

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

Who cried - "La belle Dame sans merci

Hath thee in thrall!"

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,

With horrid warning gaped wide,

And I awoke and found me here,

On the cold hill side.

And that is why I sojourn here,

Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is withered from the lake,

And no birds sing. 

-o0o-

Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802
William Wordsworth  1770-1850

Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

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