A Dream
In visions of the dark night
I have dream’d of joy departed —
But a waking dream of life and light
Hath left me broken hearted:
And what is not a dream by day
To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him with a ray
Turn’d back upon the past?
That holy dream — that holy dream,
While all the world were chiding,
Hath cheer’d me as a lovely beam
A lonely spirit guiding:
What tho’ that light, thro’ storm and night
So trembled from afar —
What could there be more purely bright
In Truth’s day-star? —
Edgar Allan Poe
Published 1829 (Earlier version published as “Untitled” in 1827)
Image by W. Heath Robinson