Theme · 69 poems

Poems About Dreams

Lullabies, dream-voyages, and the harbor of sleep — poems for the edge of the day, and for the ambitions we only admit at night.

"Dream" does two jobs in English poetry and it is worth knowing which one you want. There is sleep — the lullabies, the night pieces, the poems written at the border where the day gives out. And there is desire: the dream as the thing hoped for, which is how Yeats uses it in 'He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven', ending on the most quoted request in the language — "Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."

The darker tradition treats dreaming as a problem of knowledge. Poe's 'A Dream Within a Dream' cannot get a grip on which state is real, and the poem's grief comes from exactly that slippage: sand running through fingers, nothing holding still long enough to be true. Between those poles sit the practical night poems — Dickinson's, Stevenson's, the ones that are simply about lying down at the end of a long day — which are the ones to read aloud to a child or at the end of a hard week.

LengthForm

There is no Frigate like a Book

Emily Dickinson · 1896

To take us lands away,Nor any coursers like a pageOf prancing poetry.

4 lines · lyric

Though the great Waters sleep

Emily Dickinson

Though the great Waters sleep,That they are still the Deep,We cannot doubt —

6 lines · lyric

Ay, workman, make me a dream

Stephen Crane

Ay, workman, make me a dream,A dream for my love.Cunningly weave sunlight,

7 lines · lyric

I Dream’d in a Dream

Walt Whitman

I DREAM’D in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth;

7 lines · lyric

Water makes many Beds

Emily Dickinson

Water makes many BedsFor those averse to sleep —Its awful chamber open stands —

8 lines · lyric

In Memoriam 7: Dark house, by which once more I stand

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Dark house, by which once more I standHere in the long unlovely street,Doors, where my heart was used to beat

12 lines · lyric

To

Edgar Allan Poe

The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see The wantonest singing birds,Are lips — and all thy melody

12 lines · lyric

Travel

Edna St. Vincent Millay · 1921

The railroad track is miles away,And the day is loud with voices speaking,Yet there isn't a train goes by all day

12 lines · lyric

The Brain — is wider than the Sky

Emily Dickinson · 1896

The brain is wider than the sky,For, put them side by side,The one the other will include

12 lines · lyric

When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be

John Keats · 1848

Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,Before high pilèd books, in charactry,Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;

13 lines · sonnet

Later life

Christina Rossetti

Something this foggy day, a something whichIs neither of this fog nor of today,Has set me dreaming of the winds that play

14 lines · lyric

Sonnet 30 - I see thine image through my tears to-night

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I see thine image through my tears to-night,And yet to-day I saw thee smiling. HowRefer the cause?—Beloved, is it thou

14 lines · lyric

Holidays

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The holiest of all holidays are thoseKept by ourselves in silence and apart;The secret anniversaries of the heart,

14 lines · lyric

Nature

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

As a fond mother, when the day is o'er,Leads by the hand her little child to bed,Half willing, half reluctant to be led,

14 lines · lyric

The Evening Star

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Lo! in the painted oriel of the West,Whose panes the sunken sun incarnadines,Like a fair lady at her casement, shines

14 lines · lyric

The Sound of the Sea

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The sea awoke at midnight from its sleep,And round the pebbly beaches far and wideI heard the first wave of the rising tide

14 lines · lyric

Holy Sonnet VI: This Is My Play's Last Scene, Here Heavens Appoint

John Donne

This is my play's last scene, here heavens appointMy pilgrimage's last mile; and my raceIdly, yet quickly run, hath this last pace,

14 lines · lyric

To My Brothers

John Keats

Small, busy flames play through the fresh-laid coals,And their faint cracklings o'er our silence creepLike whispers of the household gods that keep

14 lines · lyric

Feelings of a Republican on the Fall of Bonaparte

Percy Bysshe Shelley

I hated thee, fallen tyrant! I did groanTo think that a most unambitious slave,Like thou, shouldst dance and revel on the grave

14 lines · lyric

Sonnet 129: The expense of spirit in a waste of shame

William Shakespeare

The expense of spirit in a waste of shameIs lust in action: and till action, lustIs perjur'd, murderous, bloody, full of blame,

14 lines · sonnet

Sonnet 43: When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see

William Shakespeare

When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,For all the day they view things unrespected;But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,

14 lines · sonnet

Sonnet 47: Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took

William Shakespeare

Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,And each doth good turns now unto the other:When that mine eye is famish'd for a look,

14 lines · sonnet

Sonnet 87: Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing

William Shakespeare

Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,And like enough thou know'st thy estimate,The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;

14 lines · sonnet

To

Percy Bysshe Shelley

When passion's trance is overpast,If tenderness and truth could last,Or live, whilst all wild feelings keep

15 lines · lyric

Cradle Song

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

What does little birdie sayIn her nest at peep of day?Let me fly, says little birdie,

16 lines · lyric

In Memoriam 67: When on my bed the moonlight falls

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

When on my bed the moonlight falls,I know that in thy place of restBy that broad water of the west,

16 lines · lyric

A Dream

Edgar Allan Poe

In visions of the dark night I have dreamed of joy departed —But a waking dream of life and light

16 lines · lyric

My Faith is larger than the Hills

Emily Dickinson

My Faith is larger than the Hills —So when the Hills decay —My Faith must take the Purple Wheel

16 lines · lyric

We dream—it is good we are dreaming

Emily Dickinson

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

16 lines · lyric

Hayeswater

Matthew Arnold

A region desolate and wild.Black, chafing water: and afloat,And lonely as a truant child

16 lines · lyric

To Constantia: Stanzas 1 and 2

Percy Bysshe Shelley

As restored by Mr. C.D. Locock.Cease, cease — for such wild lessons madmen learnThus to be lost, and thus to sink and die

16 lines · lyric

The Land of Nod

Robert Louis Stevenson · 1885

From breakfast on through all the dayAt home among my friends I stay;But every night I go abroad

16 lines · lyric

Woman's Constancy

John Donne

Now thou hast loved me one whole day,Tomorrow when thou leav'st, what wilt thou say?Wilt thou then antedate some new made vow?

17 lines · lyric

Song To Diana

Ben Jonson

Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,Now the sun is laid to sleep,Seated in thy silver chair

18 lines · lyric

Echo

Christina Rossetti · 1862

Come to me in the silence of the night;Come in the speaking silence of a dream;Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright

18 lines · lyric

Imitation

Edgar Allan Poe

A dark unfathomed tideOf interminable pride —A mystery, and a dream,

20 lines · lyric

Epilogue to "Asolando"

Robert Browning

At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time, When you set your fancies free,Will they pass to where — by death, fools think, imprisoned —

20 lines · lyric

A Dream

William Blake

Once a dream did weave a shadeO'er my angel-guarded bed,That an emmet lost its way

20 lines · lyric

Mutability

Percy Bysshe Shelley

The flower that smiles to-dayTo-morrow dies;All that we wish to stay

21 lines · lyric

A Thing of Beauty (Endymion)

John Keats

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:Its lovliness increases; it will neverPass into nothingness; but still will keep

23 lines · lyric

Evening: Ponte Al Mare, Pisa

Percy Bysshe Shelley

The sun is set; the swallows are asleep;The bats are flitting fast in the gray air;The slow soft toads out of damp corners creep,

24 lines · lyric

The Indian Serenade

Percy Bysshe Shelley

I arise from dreams of theeIn the first sweet sleep of night,When the winds are breathing low,

24 lines · lyric

To Jane: 'The Keen Stars Were Twinkling'

Percy Bysshe Shelley

The keen stars were twinkling,And the fair moon was rising among them,Dear Jane!

24 lines · lyric

To Mary Who Died in This Opinion

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Maiden, quench the glare of sorrowStruggling in thine haggard eye:Firmness dare to borrow

24 lines · lyric

The successful man has thrust himself

Stephen Crane

The successful man has thrust himselfThrough the water of the years,Reeking wet with mistakes —

24 lines · lyric

The Song of Wandering Aengus

W. B. Yeats · 1899

I went out to the hazel wood,Because a fire was in my head,And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

24 lines · lyric

And ask ye why these sad tears stream?

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

‘Te somnia nostra reducunt.’OVID.And ask ye why these sad tears stream?

26 lines · lyric

I tend my flowers for thee

Emily Dickinson

I tend my flowers for thee —Bright Absentee!My Fuchsia's Coral Seams

27 lines · lyric

The Dream

John Donne

Dear love, for nothing less than theeWould I have broke this happy dream;It was a theme

30 lines · lyric

A Summer Evening Churchyard

Percy Bysshe Shelley

LECHLADE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE.The wind has swept from the wide atmosphereEach vapour that obscured the sunset's ray;

31 lines · lyric

A Song

William Blake

Sweet dreams, form a shadeO'er my lovely infant's head!Sweet dreams of pleasant streams

32 lines · lyric

Dreams

Edgar Allan Poe

Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!My spirit not awakening, till the beamOf an Eternity should bring the morrow.

34 lines · lyric

To Night

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Swiftly walk o'er the western wave,Spirit of Night!Out of the misty eastern cave,

34 lines · lyric

My Father was a Farmer: A Ballad

Robert Burns

MY father was a farmer upon the Carrick border, O,And carefully he bred me in decency and order, O;He bade me act a manly part, though I had ne’er a farthing, O;

36 lines · lyric

Composed in Spring

Robert Burns

AGAIN rejoicing Nature sees Her robe assume its vernal hues:Her leafy locks wave in the breeze,

38 lines · lyric

In Winter in my Room

Emily Dickinson

In Winter in my RoomI came upon a Worm —Pink, lank and warm —

39 lines · lyric

Serenade (For Music)

Oscar Wilde

The western wind is blowing fairAcross the dark AEgean sea,And at the secret marble stair

40 lines · lyric

The Book of Thel. Part I

William Blake

The daughters of Mne Seraphim led round their sunny flocks,All but the youngest: she in paleness sought the secret air.To fade away like morning beauty from her mortal day:

43 lines · lyric

Fairyland

Edgar Allan Poe

Dim vales — and shadowy floods —And cloudy-looking woods,Whose forms we can't discover

46 lines · lyric

Stars

Emily Brontë

Ah! why, because the dazzling sunRestored our Earth to joy,Have you departed, every one,

48 lines · lyric

Common questions

What is the most famous poem about dreams?

Yeats's 'He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven', for the closing line “Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.” Poe's 'A Dream Within a Dream' is the best known on dreaming itself.

What is a good poem to read before sleep?

The short night poems work best — Stevenson wrote several for children, and Dickinson's evening poems run a few lines each, which is about right for reading aloud at bedtime.