hey i have a project for history where we have to put together a couple of poems based around one theme. I've decided to do the theme of dreams, but i can't think of anyother poems with good historical background other than dreams by langston hughes. do you know of any good ones?

heres an example of what im looking for:
Dreams
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

and in this case the historical background behind this poem is harlem renaissance, civil rights.

any suggestions??

thanks so much :D

La Belle Dame Sans Merci
by John Keats


O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
    Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither’d from the lake,
    And no birds sing.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms!
    So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
    And the harvest’s done.

I see a lily on thy brow
    With anguish moist and fever dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
    Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,
    Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
    And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,
    And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look’d at me as she did love,
    And made sweet moan.

I set her on my pacing steed,
    And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
    A faery’s song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,
    And honey wild, and manna dew,
And sure in language strange she said—
    “I love thee true.”

She took me to her elfin grot,
    And there she wept, and sigh’d full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
    With kisses four.

And there she lulled me asleep,
    And there I dream’d—Ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dream’d
    On the cold hill’s side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,
    Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—“La Belle Dame sans Merci
    Hath thee in thrall!”

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
    With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
    On the cold hill’s side.

And this is why I sojourn here,
    Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake,
    And no birds sing.




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/05/2022 04:07PM by IanB.

A Dream Within A Dream
by Edgar Allan Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

[www.emule.com]

Type the word dream in the search box below for 82 results:

[www.emule.com]

Reading Bobby Wolff's bridge column this morning, I saw the following quote attributed to Michel de Montaigne:

"Those who have compared our life to a dream were right ... We sleeping wake, and waking sleep."

Since Montaigne lived some 400 years ago (around Shakespeare's time), he is likely the one who inspired those who came later? If not, he should at least get credit for being the first to publish that particular idea, so I thought I would post this here in case the subject comes up again later.

Dream-Pedlary by Beddoes is linked above, so I won't repeat it here.

More on Montaigne:

[en.wikipedia.org]





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/31/2006 08:35AM by Hugh Clary.

Sounds a bit like Plato to me! (400 bc), and basically, christianity is based on the idea. This life is not "real", what comes after is! (it is elsewhere)