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Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

A Dream


              1In visions of the dark night
              2     I have dreamed of joy departed--
              3But a waking dream of life and light
              4     Hath left me broken-hearted.

              5Ah! what is not a dream by day
              6     To him whose eyes are cast
              7On things around him with a ray
              8     Turned back upon the past?

              9That holy dream--that holy dream,
            10     While all the world were chiding,
            11Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
            12     A lonely spirit guiding.

            13What though that light, thro' storm and night,
            14     So trembled from afar--
            15What could there be more purely bright
            16  In Truth's day-star?

Notes

16] day-star: the sun


Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: Edgar A. Poe, The Raven and Other Poems (New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1845): 83 (J. Lorimer Graham copy in the Miriam Lutcher Stark Library, University of Texas). Facsimile edition by Thomas Ollive Mabbott (Facsimile Text Society, 1942). PS 2609 A1 1845A ROBA.
First publication date: 1827
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 2.0.
Recent editing: 2:2002/4/4

Rhyme: abab


Other poems by Edgar Allan Poe