Famous Long Dream Poems

Famous Long Dream Poems. Long Dream Poetry by Famous Poets. A collection of the all-time best Dream long poems

See also: Long Member Poems

I was a little boy, at home with strangers.   
I liked my playmates, and knew well,   
Whence all their parents came; 
From England, Scotland, royal France   
From Germany and oft by chance 
The humble Emerald Isle. 

But my brown skin and close-curled hair 
Was alien, and how it grew, none knew; 
Few tried to say, some dropped a wonderful word or stray; 
Some laughed and stared. 

And then it came: I dreamed.   
I placed together all I knew 
All hints and slurs together drew.   
I dreamed. 

I made one picture of what nothing seemed   
I shuddered in dumb terror 
In silence screamed, 
For now it seemed this I had dreamed; 

How up from Hell, a land had leaped 
A wretched land, all scorched and seamed   
Covered with ashes, chained with pain   
Streaming with blood, in horror lain   
Its very air a shriek of death 
And agony of hurt. 

Anon I woke, but in one corner of my soul   
I stayed asleep. 
Forget I could not, 
But never would I remember   
That hell-hoist ghost   
Of slavery and...
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 Under what withering leprous light
The very grass as hair is grey,
Grass in the cracks of the paven courts
Of gods we graved but yesterday.
Senate, republic, empire, all
We leaned our backs on like a wall
And blessed as stron as strong and blamed as stolid--
Can it be these that waver and fall?
And what is this like a ghost returning,
A dream grown strong in the strong daylight?
The all-forsaken, the unforgotten,
The ever-behind and out of sight.
We turned our backs and our blind flesh felt it
Growing and growing, a tower in height.

Ah, not alone the evil splendour
And not the insolent arms alone
Break with the ramrod, stiff and brittle,
The sceptre of the nordic throne;
But things of manlier renown
Reel in the wreck of throne and crown,
With tyrannous tyranny, tyrannous loyalty
Tyrannous liberty, all gone down.

(There is never a crack in the ivory tower
Or a hinge to groan in the house of gold
Or a leaf of the rose in the wind to wither
And she grows young as the world grows old.
A Woman clothed with the sun returning
to clothe the sun when the sun is cold.)

Ah, who had guessed that in a moment
Great Liberty that loosed the tribes,
the Republic of the young men's battles
Grew stale and stank of old men's...
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 Now I 'm convinced the Lord is kind
To men of heart sincere;
Yet once my foolish thoughts repined,
And bordered on despair.

I grieved to see the wicked thrive,
And spoke with angry breath,
"How pleasant and profane they live !
How peaceful is their death !

"With well-fed flesh and haughty eyes,
They lay their fears to sleep;
Against the heav'ns their slanders rise,
While saints in silence weep.

"In vain I lift my hands to pray,
And cleanse my heart in vain;
For I am chastened all the day,
The night renews my pain."

Yet while my tongue indulged complaints,
I felt my heart reprove,
"Sure I shall thus offend thy saints,
And grieve the men I love."

But still I found my doubts too hard,
The conflict too severe,
Till I retired to search thy word,
And learn thy secrets there.

There, as in some prophetic glass,
I saw the sinner's feet
High mounted on a slipp'ry place,
Beside a fiery pit.

I heard the wretch profanely boast,
Till at thy frown he fell;
His honors in a dream were lost,
And he awakes in hell. 

Lord, what an envious fool I was!
How like a thoughtless beast
Thus to suspect thy promised grace,
And think the wicked blessed.

Yet I was kept from full despair,
Upheld by power unknown;
That blessed hand that broke the snare
Shall guide me to thy throne.

God,...
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 CALL it to mind, O my love.
Dear were your eyes as the day,
Bright as the day and the sky;
Like the stream of gold and the sky above,
Dear were your eyes in the grey.
We have lived, my love, O, we have lived, my love!
Now along the silent river, azure
Through the sky's inverted image,
Softly swam the boat that bore our love,
Swiftly ran the shallow of our love
Through the heaven's inverted image,
In the reedy mazes round the river.
See along the silent river,

See of old the lover's shallop steer.
Berried brake and reedy island,
Heaven below and only heaven above.
Through the sky's inverted image
Swiftly swam the boat that bore our love.
Berried brake and reedy island,
Mirrored flower and shallop gliding by.
All the earth and all the sky were ours,
Silent sat the wafted lovers,
Bound with grain and watched by all the sky,
Hand to hand and eye to . . . eye.

Days of April, airs of Eden,
Call to mind how bright the vanished angel hours,
Golden hours of evening,
When our boat drew homeward filled with flowers.
O darling, call them to mind; love the past, my love.
Days of April, airs of Eden.
How the glory died through golden hours,
And the shining moon arising;
How the boat drew homeward filled with flowers.
Age and...
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 Man, is the Sea your master? Sea, and is man your slave? – 
This is the song of brave men who never know they are brave: 
Ceaselessly watching to save you, stranger from foreign lands, 
Soundly asleep in your state room, full sail for the Goodwin Sands! 
Life is a dream, they tell us, but life seems very real, 
When the lifeboat puts out from Ramsgate, and the buggers put out from Deal! 

A gun from the lightship! – a rocket! – a cry of, "Turn out, me lad!" 
"Ship on the Sands!" they're shouting, and a rush of the oilskin-clad. 
The lifeboat leaping and swooping, in the wake of the fighting tug, 
And the luggers afloat in Hell's water – Oh, "tourist", with cushion and rug! – 
Think of the freezing fury, without one minute's relief, 
When they stood all night in the blackness by the wreck of the Indian Chief! 

Lashed to their seats, and crouching, to the spray that froze as it flew, 
Twenty-six hours in midwinter! That was the lifeboat's crew. 
Twice she was swamped, and she righted, in the rush of the heavy seas, 
And her tug was mostly buried; but these were common...
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When day comes we ask ourselves,
where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry,
a sea we must wade
We've braved the belly of the beast
We've learned that quiet isn't always peace
And the norms and notions
of what just is
Isn't always just-ice
And yet the dawn is ours
before we knew it
Somehow we do it
Somehow we've weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn't broken
but simply unfinished
We the successors of a country and a time
Where a skinny Black girl
descended from slaves and raised by a single mother
can dream of becoming president
only to find herself reciting for one
And yes we are far from polished
far from pristine
but that doesn't mean we are
striving to form a union that is perfect
We are striving to forge a union with purpose
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and
conditions of man
And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us
but what stands before us
We close the divide because we know, to put our future first,
we must first put our differences aside
We lay down our arms
so we can reach out our arms
to one another
We seek harm to none and harmony for all
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:
That even as we grieved, we grew
That...
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I MIND me in the days departed, 
How often underneath the sun 
With childish bounds I used to run 
To a garden long deserted. 

The beds and walks were vanish'd quite; 5 
And wheresoe'er had struck the spade, 
The greenest grasses Nature laid, 
To sanctify her right. 

I call'd the place my wilderness, 
For no one enter'd there but I. 10 
The sheep look'd in, the grass to espy, 
And pass'd it ne'ertheless. 

The trees were interwoven wild, 
And spread their boughs enough about 
To keep both sheep and shepherd out, 15 
But not a happy child. 

Adventurous joy it was for me! 
I crept beneath the boughs, and found 
A circle smooth of mossy ground 
Beneath a poplar-tree. 20 

Old garden rose-trees hedged it in, 
Bedropt with roses waxen-white, 
Well satisfied with dew and light, 
And careless to be seen. 

Long years ago, it might befall, 25 
When all the garden flowers were trim, 
The grave old gardener prided him 
On these the most of all. 

Some Lady, stately overmuch, 
Here moving with a silken noise, 30 
Has blush'd beside them at the voice 
That liken'd her to such. 

Or these, to make a diadem, 
She often may have...
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 White handkerchiefs wave from the short black pier 
As we glide to the grand old sea -- 
But the song of my heart is for none to hear 
If one of them waves for me. 
A roving, roaming life is mine, 
Ever by field or flood -- 
For not far back in my father's line 
Was a dash of the Gipsy blood. 

Flax and tussock and fern, 
Gum and mulga and sand, 
Reef and palm -- but my fancies turn 
Ever away from land; 
Strange wild cities in ancient state, 
Range and river and tree, 
Snow and ice. But my star of fate 
Is ever across the sea. 

A god-like ride on a thundering sea, 
When all but the stars are blind -- 
A desperate race from Eternity 
With a gale-and-a-half behind. 
A jovial spree in the cabin at night, 
A song on the rolling deck, 
A lark ashore with the ships in sight, 
Till -- a wreck goes down with a wreck. 

A smoke and a yarn on the deck by day, 
When life is a waking dream, 
And care and trouble so far away 
That out of your life they seem. 
A roving spirit in sympathy, 
Who...
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 (sign at a railroad crossing in Kenya)

In a poem, one line may hide another line,
As at a crossing, one train may hide another train.
That is, if you are waiting to cross
The tracks, wait to do it for one moment at
Least after the first train is gone. And so when you read
Wait until you have read the next line—
Then it is safe to go on reading.
In a family one sister may conceal another,
So, when you are courting, it's best to have them all in view
Otherwise in coming to find one you may love another.
One father or one brother may hide the man,
If you are a woman, whom you have been waiting to love.
So always standing in front of something the other
As words stand in front of objects, feelings, and ideas.
One wish may hide another. And one person's reputation may hide
The reputation of another. One dog may conceal another
On a lawn, so if you escape the first one you're not necessarily safe;
One lilac may hide another and then a lot of lilacs and on the Appia
 Antica one tomb
May hide a number of other tombs. In love, one reproach may hide another,
One small complaint may hide a great one.
One injustice may...
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 I

'But where do you go?' said the lady, while both sat under the yew,
And her eyes were alive in their depth, as the kraken beneath the sea-blue.

II

'Because I fear you,' he answered;--'because you are far too fair,
And able to strangle my soul in a mesh of your golfd-coloured hair.'

III

'Oh that,' she said, 'is no reason! Such knots are quickly undone,
And too much beauty, I reckon, is nothing but too much sun.'

IV

'Yet farewell so,' he answered; --'the sunstroke's fatal at times.
I value your husband, Lord Walter, whose gallop rings still from the limes.

V

'Oh that,' she said, 'is no reason. You smell a rose through a fence:
If two should smell it what matter? who grumbles, and where's the pretense?

VI

'But I,' he replied, 'have promised another, when love was free,
To love her alone, alone, who alone from afar loves me.'

VII

'Why, that,' she said, 'is no reason. Love's always free I am told.
Will you vow to be safe from the headache on Tuesday, and think it will hold?

VIII

'But you,' he replied, 'have a daughter, a young child, who was laid
In your lap to be pure; so I leave you: the angels would make me afraid."

IX

'Oh that,' she said, 'is no reason. The angels...
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 I

Said the Watcher by the Way 
To the young and the unladen, 
To the boy and to the maiden, 
"God be with you both to-day. 
First your song came ringing, 
Now you come, you two-- 
Knowing naught of what you do, 
Or of what your dreams are bringing.

"O you children who go singing 
To the Town down the River, 
Where the millions cringe and shiver, 
Tell me what you know to-day; 
Tell me how far you are going, 
Tell me how you find your way. 
O you children who are dreaming, 
Tell me what you dream to-day."

"He is old and we have heard him," 
Said the boy then to the maiden; 
"He is old and heavy laden 
With a load we throw away. 
Care may come to find us, 
Age may lay us low; 
Still, we seek the light we know, 
And the dead we leave behind us.

"Did he think that he would blind us 
Into such a small believing 
As to live without achieving, 
When the lights have led so far? 
Let him watch or let him wither,-- 
Shall he tell us where we are? 
We know best, who go together, 
Downward, onward, and so far."

II

Said the Watcher...
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 Out upon the sand-dunes thrive the coarse long grasses;
Herons standing knee-deep in the brackish pool;
Overhead the sunset fire and flame amasses
And the moon to eastward rises pale and cool.
Rose and green around her, silver-gray and pearly, 
Chequered with the black rooks flying home to bed; 
For, to wake at daybreak, birds must couch them early: 
And the day's a long one since the dawn was red. 

On the chilly lakelet, in that pleasant gloaming, 
See the sad swans sailing: they shall have no rest:
Never a voice to greet them save the bittern's booming 
Where the ghostly sallows sway against the West. 
'Sister,' saith the gray swan, 'Sister, I am weary,'
Turning to the white swan wet, despairing eyes; 
'O' she saith, 'my young one! O' she saith, 'my dearie !' 
Casts her wings about him with a storm of cries. 

Woe for Lir's sweet children whom their vile stepmother 
Glamoured with her witch-spells for a thousand years; 
Died their father raving, on his throne another, 
Blind before the end came from the burning tears. 
Long the swans have wandered over lake and river; 
Gone is all the glory of the race of Lir: 
Gone and long forgotten like a dream...
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 ("En ce temps-là du ciel les portes.") 
 
 {Bk. I. v., December, 1822.} 


 The golden gates were opened wide that day, 
 All through the unveiled heaven there seemed to play 
 Out of the Holiest of Holy, light; 
 And the elect beheld, crowd immortal, 
 A young soul, led up by young angels bright, 
 Stand in the starry portal. 
 
 A fair child fleeing from the world's fierce hate, 
 In his blue eye the shade of sorrow sate, 
 His golden hair hung all dishevelled down, 
 On wasted cheeks that told a mournful story, 
 And angels twined him with the innocent's crown, 
 The martyr's palm of glory. 
 
 The virgin souls that to the Lamb are near, 
 Called through the clouds with voices heavenly clear, 
 God hath prepared a glory for thy brow, 
 Rest in his arms, and all ye hosts that sing 
 His praises ever on untired string, 
 Chant, for a mortal comes among ye now; 
 Do homage—"'Tis a king." 
 
 And the pale shadow saith to God in heaven: 
 "I am an orphan and no king at all;...
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 from an officer's diary during the last war

I 

The sour daylight cracks through my sleep-caked lids. 
"Stephan! Stephan!" The rattling orderly 
Comes on a trot, the cold tray in his hands: 
Toast whitening with oleo, brown tea, 

Yesterday's napkins, and an opened letter. 
"Your asthma's bad, old man." He doesn't answer, 
And turns to the grey windows and the weather. 
"Don't worry, Stephan, the lungs will go to cancer." 

II 

I speak, "the enemy's exhausted, victory 
Is almost ours..." These twenty new recruits, 
Conscripted for the battles lost already, 
Were once the young, exchanging bitter winks, 

And shuffling when I rose to eloquence, 
Determined not to die and not to show 
The fear that held them in their careless stance, 
And yet they died, how many wars ago? 

Or came back cream puffs, 45, and fat. 
I know that I am touched for my eyes brim 
With tears I had forgotten. Death is not 
For these car salesmen whose only dream 

Is of a small percentage of the take. 
Oh my eternal smilers, weep for death 
Whose harvest withers with your aged aches 
And cannot make the grave for lack of breath. 

III 

Did you wet? Oh no, he...
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 After Joseph Roth

Parce que c'était lui; parce que c'était moi.
Montaigne, De L'amitië

The dream's forfeit was a night in jail
and now the slant light is crepuscular.
Papers or not, you are a foreigner
whose name is always difficult to spell.
You pack your one valise. You ring the bell.
Might it not be prudent to disappear
beneath that mauve-blue sky above the square
fronting your cosmopolitan hotel?
You know two short-cuts to the train station
which could get you there, on foot, in time.
The person who's apprised of your intention
and seems to be your traveling companion
is merely the detritus of a dream.
You cross the lobby and go out alone.

You crossed the lobby and went out alone
through the square, where two red-headed girls played
hopscotch on a chalk grid, now in the shade,
of a broad-leafed plane tree, now in the sun.
The lively, lovely, widowed afternoon
disarmed, uncoupled, shuffled and disarrayed
itself; despite itself, dismayed
you with your certainties, your visa, gone
from your breast-pocket, or perhaps expired.
At the reception desk, no one inquired
if you'd be returning. Now you wonder why.
When the stout conductor comes down the aisle
mustached, red-faced, at first jovial,
and asks for your passport, what will you say?

When they ask for your passport, will you say
that town's name they'd find unpronounceable
which resonates, when...
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