Famous Dream Up Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Dream of Eugene Aram

by Thomas Hood
 'Twas in the prime of summer-time 
An evening calm and cool, 
And four-and-twenty happy boys 
Came bounding out of school: 
There were some that ran and some that leapt, 
Like troutlets in a pool.

Away they sped with gamesome minds, 
And souls untouched by sin; 
To a level mead they came, and there 
They drave the wickets in: 
Pleasantly shone...Read more of this...

Dream Song 23: The Lay of Ike

by John Berryman
 This is the lay of Ike.
Here's to the glory of the Grewt White-”awk-”
who has been running-”er-”er-”things in recent-”ech-”
in the United-”If your screen is black,
ladies & gentlemen, we-”I like-”
at the Point he was already terrific-”sick

to a second term, having done no wrong-”
no right-”no · right-”having let the Army-”bang-”
defend itself from Joe, let venom' Strauss
bile Oppenheimer out of use-”use Robb,
who'll later...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 97: Henry of Donnybrook bred like a pig

by John Berryman
 Henry of Donnybrook bred like a pig,
bred when he was brittle, bred when big,
how he's sweating to support them.
Which birthday of the brighter darker man,
the Goya of the Globe & Blackfriars, whom-”
our full earth smiled on him

squeezing his old heart with a daughter loose
(hostages they áre)-”the world's produced,
so far, alarms, alarms.
Fancy the chill & fatigue four hundred years
award a...Read more of this...

The Dream

by John Donne
DEAR love for nothing less than thee 
Would I have broke this happy dream; 
It was a theme 
For reason much too strong for fantasy. 
Therefore thou waked'st me wisely; yet 5 
My dream thou brok'st not but continued'st it. 
Thou art so true that thoughts of thee suffice 
To make dreams truths and fables histories; 
Enter these arms for...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 77: Seedy Henry rose up shy

by John Berryman
 Seedy Henry rose up shy in de world
& shaved & swung his barbells, duded Henry up
and p.a.'d poor thousands of persons on topics of grand
moment to Henry, ah to those less & none.
Wif a book of his in either hand
he is stript down to move on.

-”Come away, Mr. Bones.

-”Henry is tired of the winter,
& haircuts, & a squeamish comfy...Read more of this...

Dream Song 108: Sixteen below. Our care like stranded hulls

by John Berryman
 Sixteen below. Our care like stranded hulls
litter all day our little Avenues.
It was 28 below.
No one goes anywhere. Fabulous calls
to duty clank. Icy dungeons, though, 
have much to mention to you.

At Harvard & Yale must Pussy-cat be heard
in the dead of winter when we must be sad
and feel by the weather had.
Chrysanthemums crest, far way, in the Emperor's garden
and,...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...

My Dream

by Ogden Nash
 This is my dream, 
It is my own dream, 
I dreamt it. 
I dreamt that my hair was kempt. 
Then I dreamt that my true love unkempt it....Read more of this...

Dream Song 62: That dark brown rabbit lightness in his ears

by John Berryman
 That dark brown rabbit, lightness in his ears
& underneath, gladdened our afternoon
munching a crab-'.
That rabbit was a fraud, like a black bull
prudent I admired in Zaragoza, who
certainly was brave as a demon

but would not charge, being willing not to die.
The rabbit's case, a little different,
consisted in alert
& wily looks down the lawn, where nobody was,
with prickt ears, while rapt...Read more of this...

Dream Song 96: Under the table no. That last was stunning

by John Berryman
 Under the table, no. That last was stunning,
that flagon had breasts. Some men grow down cursed.
Why drink so, two days running?
two months, O seasons, years, two decades running?
I answer (smiles) my question on the cuff:
Man, I been thirsty.

The brake is incomplete but white costumes
threaten his rum, his cointreau, gin-&-sherry,
his bourbon, bugs um all.
His go-out privilege led to odd red...Read more of this...

Dream Song 171: Go ill-sped book and whisper to her or

by John Berryman
 Go, ill-sped book, and whisper to her or 
storm out the message for her only ear 
that she is beautiful. 
Mention sunsets, be not silent of her eyes 
and mouth and other prospects, praise her size, 
say her figure is full. 

Say her small figure is heavenly & full, 
so as stunned Henry yatters like a fool 
& maketh...Read more of this...

Why Fades A Dream?

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Why fades a dream?
An iridescent ray
Flecked in between the tryst
Of night and day.
Why fades a dream?—
Of consciousness the shade
Wrought out by lack of light and made
Upon life's stream.
Why fades a dream?
That thought may thrive,
[Pg 78]So fades the fleshless dream;
Lest men should learn to trust
The things that seem.
So fades a dream,
That living thought may grow
And like a waxing star-beam...Read more of this...

The Dream

by Alexander Pushkin
 Not long ago, in a charming dream,
I saw myself -- a king with crown's treasure;
I was in love with you, it seemed,
And heart was beating with a pleasure.
I sang my passion's song by your enchanting knees.
Why, dreams, you didn't prolong my happiness forever?
But gods deprived me not of whole their favor:
I only lost the kingdom of my dreams....Read more of this...

Dream Song 49: Blind

by John Berryman
 Old Pussy-cat if he won't eat, he don't
feel good into his tum', old Pussy-cat.
He wants to have eaten.
Tremor, heaves, he sweaterings. He can't.
A dizzy swims of where is Henry at;
. . . somewhere streng verboten.

How come he sleeps & sleeps and sleeps, waking like death:
locate the restorations of which we hear
as of profound sleep.
From daylight he got maintrackt, from...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...

The Dream

by Louise Bogan
 Love, if I weep it will not matter,
 And if you laugh I shall not care;
Foolish am I to think about it,
 But it is good to feel you there.

Love, in my sleep I dreamed of waking,—
 White and awful the moonlight reached
Over the floor, and somewhere, somewhere,
 There was a shutter loose,—it screeched!

Swung in the wind,—and no wind...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 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...

Dream Song 100: How this woman came by the courage

by John Berryman
 How this woman came by the courage, how she got
the courage, Henry bemused himself in a frantic hot
night of the eight of July,
where it came from, did once the Lord frown down
upon her ancient cradle thinking 'This one
will do before she die

for two and seventy years of chipped indignities
at least,' and with his thunder clapped a promise?
In that far...Read more of this...

Traveling Dream

by Marge Piercy
 I am packing to go to the airport 
but somehow I am never packed. 
I keep remembering more things 
I keep forgetting. 

Secretly the clock is bolting 
forward ten minutes at a click 
instead of one. Each time 
I look away, it jumps. 

Now I remember I have to find 
the cats. I have four cats 
even when I...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 113: or Amy Vladeck or Riva Freifeld

by John Berryman
 or Amy Vladeck or Riva Freifeld

That isna Henry limping. That's a hobble
clapped on mere Henry by the most high GOD
for the freedom of Henry's soul.
-”The body's foul, cried god, once, twice, & bound it-”
For many years I hid it from him successfully-”
I'm not clear how he found it

But now he has it-”much good may it do him
in the vacant...Read more of this...

Dream Song 84: Op. posth. no. 7

by John Berryman
 Plop, plop. The lobster toppled in the pot,
fulfilling, dislike man, his destiny,
glowing fire-red,
succulent, and on the whole becoming what
man wants. I crack my final claw singly,
wind up the grave, & to bed.

-”Sound good, Mr Bones. I wish I had me some.
(I spose you got a lessen up your slave.)
-”O no no no.
Sole I remember; where no lobster swine,-”
pots hot...Read more of this...

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