Poems About Dreams
Curated by the Writory editorial team. Updated September 2026.
Quick answer: Read 14 classic poems about dreams and sleep, from Poe and Blake to Dickinson and Donne. Full texts with notes on each one.
Dreams are where poetry feels most at home, since both work by image and neither has to obey the daylight rules. The poems here slip between sleeping and waking and are not always sure which side they are on.
Poe, more than anyone, lived in that borderland; four of his dream poems are here, from the famous 'A Dream Within a Dream' to the eerie map of 'Dreamland.' Donne wakes to find his dream walking into the room, and Whitman dreams a city love could not topple.
Read these last thing at night and see where they take you.
A Dream Within A Dream
Edgar Allan Poe · American
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?
Is anything we hold real, or only sand slipping through the fingers? Poe's oldest fear, beautifully staged.
Dreams
Edgar Allan Poe · American
Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!
My spirit not awakening, till the beam
Of an Eternity should bring the morrow.
Yes! though that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,
'Twere better than the cold reality
Of waking life, to him whose heart must be,
And hath been still, upon the lovely earth,
A chaos of deep passion, from his birth.
But should it be--that dream eternally
Continuing--as dreams have been to me
In my young boyhood--should it thus be given,
'Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven.
For I have revelled when the sun was bright
I' the summer sky, in dreams of living light
And loveliness,--have left my very heart
Inclines of my imaginary apart
From mine own home, with beings that have been
Of mine own thought--what more could I have seen?
'Twas once--and only once--and the wild hour
From my remembrance shall not pass--some power
Or spell had bound me--'twas the chilly wind
Came o'er me in the night, and left behind
Its image on my spirit--or the moon
Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noon
Too coldly--or the stars--howe'er it was
That dream was that that night-wind--let it pass.
I have been happy, though in a dream.
I have been happy--and I love the theme:
Dreams! in their vivid coloring of life
As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife
Of semblance with reality which brings
To the delirious eye, more lovely things
Of Paradise and Love--and all my own!--
Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.
Young Poe would rather keep dreaming than wake to a colder life. The wish that runs under all his work.
A Dream
Edgar Allan Poe · American
In visions of the dark night
I have dreamed of joy departed--
But a waking dream of life and light
Hath left me broken-hearted.
Ah! what is not a dream by day
To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him with a ray
Turned back upon the past?
That holy dream--that holy dream,
While all the world were chiding,
Hath cheered me as a lovely beam,
A lonely spirit guiding.
What though that light, thro' storm and night,
So trembled from afar--
What could there be more purely bright
In Truth's day star?
A dream of lost light that still beats brighter than any waking star.
Dreamland
Edgar Allan Poe · American
By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule--
From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime,
Out of SPACE--out of TIME.
Bottomless vales and boundless floods,
And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,
With forms that no man can discover
For the dews that drip all over;
Mountains toppling evermore
Into seas without a shore;
Seas that restlessly aspire,
Surging, unto skies of fire;
Lakes that endlessly outspread
Their lone waters--lone and dead,
Their still waters--still and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily.
By the lakes that thus outspread
Their lone waters, lone and dead,--
Their sad waters, sad and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily,--
By the mountains--near the river
Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,--
By the gray woods,--by the swamp
Where the toad and the newt encamp,--
By the dismal tarns and pools
Where dwell the Ghouls,--
By each spot the most unholy--
In each nook most melancholy,--
There the traveller meets aghast
Sheeted Memories of the past--
Shrouded forms that start and sigh
As they pass the wanderer by--
White-robed forms of friends long given,
In agony, to the Earth--and Heaven.
For the heart whose woes are legion
'Tis a peaceful, soothing region--
For the spirit that walks in shadow
'Tis--oh, 'tis an Eldorado!
But the traveller, travelling through it,
May not--dare not openly view it;
Never its mysteries are exposed
To the weak human eye unclosed;
So wills its King, who hath forbid
The uplifting of the fringed lid;
And thus the sad Soul that here passes
Beholds it but through darkened glasses.
By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only.
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have wandered home but newly
From this ultimate dim Thule.
A tour of the country just past sleep: out of space, out of time, ruled by a shrouded Night.
We dream -- it is good we are dreaming --
Emily Dickinson · American
We dream -- it is good we are dreaming --
It would hurt us -- were we awake --
But since it is playing -- kill us,
And we are playing -- shriek --
What harm? Men die -- externally --
It is a truth -- of Blood --
But we -- are dying in Drama --
And Drama -- is never dead --
Cautious -- We jar each other --
And either -- open the eyes --
Lest the Phantasm -- prove the Mistake --
And the livid Surprise
Cool us to Shafts of Granite --
With just an Age -- and Name --
And perhaps a phrase in Egyptian --
It's prudenter -- to dream --
Dreaming softens the blow, she says, or the plain truth would break us outright.
Dreams
Anne Bronte · Victorian
While on my lonely couch I lie,
I seldom feel myself alone,
For fancy fills my dreaming eye
With scenes and pleasures of its own.
Then I may cherish at my breast
An infant's form beloved and fair,
May smile and soothe it into rest
With all a Mother's fondest care.
How sweet to feel its helpless form
Depending thus on me alone!
And while I hold it safe and warm
What bliss to think it is my own!
And glances then may meet my eyes
That daylight never showed to me;
What raptures in my bosom rise,
Those earnest looks of love to see,
To feel my hand so kindly prest,
To know myself beloved at last,
To think my heart has found a rest,
My life of solitude is past!
But then to wake and find it flown,
The dream of happiness destroyed,
To find myself unloved, alone,
What tongue can speak the dreary void?
A heart whence warm affections flow,
Creator, thou hast given to me,
And am I only thus to know
How sweet the joys of love would be?
In sleep she is given the love and the child she will never have awake. Then dawn takes them back.
The Dream
John Donne · Metaphysical · Metaphysical
Dear love, for nothing less than thee
Would I have broke this happy dream;
It was a theme
For reason, much too strong for phantasy:
Therefore thou waked'st me wisely; yet
My dream thou brok'st not, but continued'st it.
Thou art so truth that thoughts of thee suffice
To make dreams truths, and fables histories.
Enter these arms, for since thou thought'st it best
Not to dream all my dream, let's act the rest.
As lightning or a taper's light,
Thine eyes, and not thy noise, waked me;
Yet I thought thee
(For thou lov'st truth) an angel at first sight;
But when I saw thou saw'st my heart,
And knew'st my thoughts, beyond an angels art,
When thou knew'st what I dreamt, when thou knew'st when
Excess of joy would wake me, and cam'st then,
I must confess it could not choose but be
Prophane to think thee anything but thee.
Comming and staying showed thee thee,
But rising makes me doubt, that now
Thou art not thou.
That Love is weak, where fear's as strong as he;
'Tis not all spirit pure and brave
If mixture it of Fear, Shame, Honour, have.
Perchance as torches, which must ready be,
Men light and put out, so thou deal'st with me,
Thou cam'st to kindle, go'st to come; Then I
Will dream that hope again, but else would die.
She walks in and the dream comes true mid-sentence. Donne turning waking and dreaming inside out.
I Dream'd in a Dream.
Walt Whitman · American
I DREAM'D in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of
the
earth;
I dream'd that was the new City of Friends;
Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love - it led the rest;
It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city,
And in all their looks and words. 5
A city that no attack could ever shake, held up by nothing but friendship. Whitman's finest daydream.
The Dream
Amy Levy · Victorian
Believe me, this was true last night,
Tho' it is false to-day.
-- A.M.F. Robinson.
A fair dream to my chamber flew:
Such a crowd of folk that stirred,
Jested, fluttered; only you,
You alone of all that band,
Calm and silent, spake no word.
Only once you neared my place,
And your hand one moment's space
Sought the fingers of my hand;
Your eyes flashed to mine; I knew
All was well between us two.
* * * * *
On from dream to dream I past,
But the first sweet vision cast
Mystic radiance o'er the last.
* * * * *
When I woke the pale night lay
Still, expectant of the day;
All about the chamber hung
Tender shade of twilight gloom;
The fair dream hovered round me, clung
To my thought like faint perfume:--
Like sweet odours, such as cling
To the void flask, which erst encloses
Attar of rose; or the pale string
Of amber which has lain with roses.
A vivid night-vision she half-believes, and half-warns you not to.
A DREAM
William Blake · Romantic
Once a dream did weave a shade
O'er my angel-guarded bed,
That an emmet lost its way
Where on grass methought I lay.
Troubled, wildered, and forlorn,
Dark, benighted, travel-worn,
Over many a tangle spray,
All heart-broke, I heard her say:
"Oh my children! do they cry,
Do they hear their father sigh?
Now they look abroad to see,
Now return and weep for me."
Pitying, I dropped a tear:
But I saw a glow-worm near,
Who replied, "What wailing wight
Calls the watchman of the night?
"I am set to light the ground,
While the beetle goes his round:
Follow now the beetle's hum;
Little wanderer, hie thee home!"
An ant lost in the grass at night, and the small creatures who light her home. A child's dream of mercy.
To Night
Percy Bysshe Shelley · Romantic
Swiftly walk o'er the western wave,
Spirit of Night!
Out of the misty eastern cave,
Where, all the long and lone daylight,
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear,
'Which make thee terrible and dear,--
Swift be thy flight!
Wrap thy form in a mantle gray,
Star-inwrought!
Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day;
Kiss her until she be wearied out,
Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land,
Touching all with thine opiate wand--
Come, long-sought!
When I arose and saw the dawn,
I sighed for thee;
When light rode high, and the dew was gone,
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree,
And the weary Day turned to his rest,
Lingering like an unloved guest, I sighed for thee.
Thy brother Death came, and cried,
Wouldst thou me?
Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed,
Murmured like a noontide bee,
Shall I nestle near thy side?
Wouldst thou me?--And I replied,
No, not thee!
Death will come when thou art dead,
Soon, too soon--
Sleep will come when thou art fled;
Of neither would I ask the boon
I ask of thee, beloved Night--
Swift be thine approaching flight,
Come soon, soon!
He calls to Night the way a tired child calls for sleep, longing for its long grey wing.
A Ballad of Dreamland
Algernon Charles Swinburne · Victorian · Ballad
I hid my heart in a nest of roses,
Out of the sun's way, hidden apart;
In a softer bed then the soft white snow's is,
Under the roses I hid my heart.
Why would it sleep not? why should it start,
When never a leaf of the rose-tree stirred?
What made sleep flutter his wings and part?
Only the song of a secret bird.
Lie still, I said, for the wind's wing closes,
And mild leaves muffle the keen sun's dart;
Lie still, for the wind on the warm seas dozes,
And the wind is unquieter yet than thou art.
Does a thought in thee still as a thorn's wound smart?
Does the fang still fret thee of hope deferred?
What bids the lips of thy sleep dispart?
Only the song of a secret bird.
The green land's name that a charm encloses,
It never was writ in the traveller's chart,
And sweet on its trees as the fruit that grows is,
It never was sold in the merchant's mart.
The swallows of dreams through its dim fields dart,
And sleep's are the tunes in its tree-tops heard;
No hound's note wakens the wildwood hart,
Only the song of a secret bird.
ENVOI
In the world of dreams I have chosen my part,
To sleep for a season and hear no word
Of true love's truth or of light love's art,
Only the song of a secret bird.
He hides his heart in a nest of roses, and only the nightingale can say where.
Life
Charlotte Bronte · Victorian
LIFE, believe, is not a dream
So dark as sages say;
Oft a little morning rain
Foretells a pleasant day.
Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,
But these are transient all;
If the shower will make the roses bloom,
O why lament its fall ?
Rapidly, merrily,
Life's sunny hours flit by,
Gratefully, cheerily,
Enjoy them as they fly !
What though Death at times steps in
And calls our Best away ?
What though sorrow seems to win,
O'er hope, a heavy sway ?
Yet hope again elastic springs,
Unconquered, though she fell;
Still buoyant are her golden wings,
Still strong to bear us well.
Manfully, fearlessly,
The day of trial bear,
For gloriously, victoriously,
Can courage quell despair !
Life is not so grim as the sages say, she insists. A daydream you can actually put to use.
Sleeping Out: Full Moon
Rupert Brooke · Modern
They sleep within. . . .
I cower to the earth, I waking, I only.
High and cold thou dreamest, O queen, high-dreaming and lonely.
We have slept too long, who can hardly win
The white one flame, and the night-long crying;
The viewless passers; the world's low sighing
With desire, with yearning,
To the fire unburning,
To the heatless fire, to the flameless ecstasy! . . .
Helpless I lie.
And around me the feet of thy watchers tread.
There is a rumour and a radiance of wings above my head,
An intolerable radiance of wings. . . .
All the earth grows fire,
White lips of desire
Brushing cool on the forehead, croon slumbrous things.
Earth fades; and the air is thrilled with ways,
Dewy paths full of comfort. And radiant bands,
The gracious presence of friendly hands,
Help the blind one, the glad one, who stumbles and strays,
Stretching wavering hands, up, up, through the praise
Of a myriad silver trumpets, through cries,
To all glory, to all gladness, to the infinite height,
To the gracious, the unmoving, the mother eyes,
And the laughter, and the lips, of light.
Sleeping in the open, he drifts toward a light he can only call Home.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the most famous poem about dreams?
Edgar Allan Poe's 'A Dream Within a Dream,' with its question of whether anything we hold is real, is the most famous poem about dreams in English. His 'Dreamland' and 'Dreams' explore the same territory and are all included here.
What are short poems about dreams?
Walt Whitman's 'I Dream'd in a Dream' is only seven lines. Emily Dickinson's 'We dream, it is good we are dreaming' and Poe's 'A Dream' are both brief and haunting.
Which poets wrote about dreams and sleep?
Edgar Allan Poe returned to dreams more than any other poet, but John Donne, William Blake, Shelley and Anne Bronte each wrote memorably about them too. This collection gathers their best short dream poems in one place.
How to write a poem about dreams
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