Famous A Dream Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous A Dream poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous a dream poems. These examples illustrate what a famous a dream poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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Dream Song 65: A freaking ankle crabbed his blissful trips

by John Berryman
 A freaking ankle crabbed his blissful trips,
this whiskey tastes like California
but is Kentucky,
like Berkeley where he truly worked at it
but nothing broke all night-”no fires-”one dawn,
crowding his luck,

flowed down along the cliffs to the Big Sur
where Henry Miller's box is vomit-green
and Henry bathed in sulphur
lovely, hot, over the sea, like Senator
Cat, relaxed & sober, watery
as Tivoli, sir.

No Christmas jaunts...Read more of this...

The Opal Dream Cave

by Katherine Mansfield
 In an opal dream cave I found a fairy:
Her wings were frailer than flower petals,
Frailer far than snowflakes.
She was not frightened, but poised on my finger,
Then delicately walked into my hand.
I shut the two palms of my hands together
And held her prisoner.
I carried her out of the opal cave,
Then opened my hands.
First she became thistledown,
Then a mote in a...Read more of this...

A Dream Pang

by Robert Frost
 I had withdrawn in forest, and my song
Was swallowed up in leaves that blew alway;
And to the forest edge you came one day
(This was my dream) and looked and pondered long,
But did not enter, though the wish was strong:
you shook your pensive head as who should say,
'I dare not--to far in his footsteps stray-
He must seek me would he...Read more of this...

The Dream-Follower

by Thomas Hardy
 A dream of mine flew over the mead 
 To the halls where my old Love reigns; 
And it drew me on to follow its lead: 
 And I stood at her window-panes; 

And I saw but a thing of flesh and bone 
 Speeding on to its cleft in the clay; 
And my dream was scared, and expired...Read more of this...

The Dream of the Children

by George William Russell
 THE CHILDREN awoke in their dreaming
 While earth lay dewy and still:
They followed the rill in its gleaming
 To the heart-light of the hill.


Its sounds and sights were forsaking
 The world as they faded in sleep,
When they heard a music breaking
 Out from the heart-light deep.


It ran where the rill in its flowing
 Under the star-light gay,
With wonderful colour...Read more of this...

Dream Song 69: Love her he doesnt but the thought he puts

by John Berryman
 Love her he doesn't but the thought he puts
into that young woman
would launch a national product
complete with TV spots & skywriting
outlets in Bonn & Tokyo
I mean it

Let it be known that nine words have not passed
between herself and Henry;
looks, smiles.
God help Henry, who deserves it all
every least part of that infernal & unconscious
woman, and the pain.

I feel as if,...Read more of this...

Dream Song 59: Henrys Meditation in the Kremlin

by John Berryman
 Down on the cathedrals, as from the Giralda
in a land no crueller, and over the walls
to domes & river look
from Great John's belfry, Ivan-Veliky,
whose thirty-one are still
to hail who storms no father's throne. Bell, book

& cradle rule, in silence. Hour by hour
from time to time with holy oil
touch yet the forehead eyelids nose
lips ears breast fists of Kruschev, for...Read more of this...

Dream Song 127: Again his friends death made the man sit still

by John Berryman
 Again, his friend's death made the man sit still
and freeze inside-”his daughter won first price-”
his wife scowled over at him-”
It seemed to be Hallowe'en.
His friend's death had been adjudged suicide,
which dangles a trail

longer than Henry's chill, longer than his loss
and longer than the letter that he wrote 
that day to the widow
to find out what the hell had happened...Read more of this...

Dream Song 51: Our wounds to time from all the other times

by John Berryman
 Our wounds to time, from all the other times,
sea-times slow, the times of galaxies
fleeing, the dwarfs' dead times,
lessen so little that if here in his crude rimes
Henry them mentions, do not hold it, please,
for a putting of man down.

Ol' Marster, being bound you do your best
versus we coons, spare now a cagey John
a whilom bits that whip:
who'll tell your...Read more of this...

Dream Song 106: 28 July

by John Berryman
 28 July

Calmly, while sat up friendlies & made noise
delight fuller than he can ready sing
or studiously say,
on hearing that the year had swung to pause
and culminated in an abundant thing,
came his Lady's birthday.

Dogs fill daylight, doing each other ill:
my own in love was lugged so many blocks
we had to have a vet.
Comes unrepentant round the lustful mongrel
again today, glaring...Read more of this...

A Dream After Reading Dantes Episode Of Paolo And Francesca

by John Keats
 As Hermes once took to his feathers light,
When lulled Argus, baffled, swooned and slept,
So on a Delphic reed, my idle spright
So played, so charmed, so conquered, so bereft
The dragon-world of all its hundred eyes;
And seeing it asleep, so fled away,
Not to pure Ida with its snow-cold skies,
Nor unto Tempe, where Jove grieved a day;
But to that second circle of...Read more of this...

Dream Song 128: A hemorrhage of his left ear of Good Friday

by John Berryman
 A hemorrhage of his left ear of Good Friday-”
so help me Jesus-”then made funny too
the other, further one.
There must have been a bit. Sheets scrubbed away 
soon all but three nails. Doctors in this city O
will not (his wife cried) come.

Perhaps he's for it. IF that Filipino doc
had diagnosed ah here in Washington
that ear-infection ha
he'd have been grounded, so...Read more of this...

Dream Song 5: Henry sats in de bar and was odd

by John Berryman
 Henry sats in de bar & was odd,
off in the glass from the glass,
at odds wif de world & its god,
his wife is a complete nothing,
St Stephen
getting even.

Henry sats in de plane & was gay.
Careful Henry nothing said aloud
but where a Virgin out of cloud
to her Mountain dropt in light,
his thought made pockets & the plane buckt.
'Parm me, lady.'...Read more of this...

Dream Song 61: Full moon. Our Narragansett gales subside

by John Berryman
 Full moon. Our Narragansett gales subside
and the land is celebrating men of war
more or less, less or more.
In valleys, thin on headlands, narrow & wide
our targets rest. In us we trust. Far, near,
the bivouacs of fear

are solemn in the moon somewhere tonight,
in turning time. It's late for gratitude,
an annual, rude
roar of a moment's turkey's 'Thanks'. Bright & white
their ordered...Read more of this...

Dream Song 129: Thin as a sheet his mother came to him

by John Berryman
 Thin as a sheet his mother came to him
during the screaming evenings after he did it,
touched F.J.'s dead hand.
The parlour was dark, he was the first pall-bearer in,
he gave himself a dare & then did it,
the thing was quite unplanned,

riots for Henry the unstructured dead,
his older playmate fouled, reaching for him
and never will he be free
from the older boy...Read more of this...

The Shearers Dream

by Henry Lawson
 O I dreamt I shore in a shearing shed and it was a dream of joy
For every one of the rouseabouts was a girl dressed up as a boy
Dressed up like a page in a pantomime the prettiest ever seen
They had flaxen hair they had coal black hair and every shade between

There was short plump girls there was tall...Read more of this...

Dream Song 95: The surly cop looked out at me in sleep

by John Berryman
 The surly cop looked out at me in sleep
insect-like. Guess, who was the insect.
I'd asked him in my robe
& hospital gown in the elevator politely
why someone saw so many police around,
and without speaking he looked.

A meathead, and of course he was armed, to creep
across my nervous system some time ago wrecked.
I saw the point of Loeb
at last, to give...Read more of this...

Dream Song 54: NO VISITORS I thumb the roller to

by John Berryman
 'NO VISITORS' I thumb the roller to
and leans against the door.
Comfortable in my horseblanket
I prop on the costly bed & dream of my wife,
my first wife,
and my second wife & my son.

Insulting, they put guardrails up,
as if it were a crib!
I growl at the head nurse; we compose on one.
I have been operating from nothing,
like a dog after its...Read more of this...

The House Of Dust: Part 02: 02: The Fulfilled Dream

by Conrad Aiken
 More towers must yet be built—more towers destroyed—
Great rocks hoisted in air;
And he must seek his bread in high pale sunlight
With gulls about him, and clouds just over his eyes . . .
And so he did not mention his dream of falling
But drank his coffee in silence, and heard in his ears
That horrible whistle of wind, and felt his...Read more of this...

The Dream

by George (Lord) Byron
 I

Our life is twofold; Sleep hath its own world,
A boundary between the things misnamed
Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world,
And a wide realm of wild reality,
And dreams in their development have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They take a weight from off waking toils,
They do divide our being;...Read more of this...

A Dream

by Helen Hunt Jackson
 I dreamed that I ws dead and crossed the heavens,-- 
Heavens after heavens with burning feet and swift,-- 
And cried: "O God, where art Thou?" I left one 
On earth, whose burden I would pray Thee lift." 

I was so dead I wondered at no thing,-- 
Not even that the angels slowly turned 
Their faces, speechless, as I hurried...Read more of this...

Last night I had a dream

by Muhammad Ali
Last night I had a dream, When I got to Africa,
I had one hell of a rumble.
I had to beat Tarzan’s behind first,
For claiming to be King of the Jungle.
For this fight, I’ve wrestled with alligators,
I’ve tussled with a whale.
I done handcuffed lightning
And throw thunder in jail.
You know I’m bad.
just last week, I murdered a rock,
Injured a stone, Hospitalized a...Read more of this...

Dream Song 31: Henry Hankovitch con guítar

by John Berryman
 Henry Hankovitch, con guítar,
did a short Zen pray,
on his tatami in a relaxed lotos
fixin his mind on nuffin, rose-blue breasts,
and gave his parnel one French kiss;
enslaving himself he withdrew from his blue

Florentine leather case an Egyptian black
& flickt a zippo.
Henry & Phoebe happy as cockroaches
in the world-kitchen woofed, with all away.
The International flame, like despair, rose
or like the foolish...Read more of this...

Cats Dream

by Pablo Neruda
 How neatly a cat sleeps,
Sleeps with its paws and its posture,
Sleeps with its wicked claws,
And with its unfeeling blood,
Sleeps with ALL the rings a series 
Of burnt circles which have formed 
The odd geology of its sand-colored tail.

I should like to sleep like a cat,
With all the fur of time,
With a tongue rough as flint,
With the dry sex of...Read more of this...

Dream Song 110: It was the blue and plain ones. I forget all that

by John Berryman
 It was the blue & plain ones. I forget all that.
My own clouds darkening hung.
Besides, it wasn't serious.
They took them in different rooms & fed them lies.
'She admitted you wanted to get rid of it.'
'He told us he told you to.'

The Force, with its rapists con-men murderers,
has been our Pride (trust Henry) eighty years;-”
now Teddy was hard on.
Still the...Read more of this...

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