A Dream
A Dream - context Summary
Published in 1829
Edgar Allan Poe's "A Dream" was first published in 1829 in the collection Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems. As an early work, it conveys a compact melancholy that contrasts visions of joy departed
with a sustaining, guiding holy dream
. The poem's consolatory yet sorrowful tone is typical of Poe's youth and is often read in light of his personal losses and longing for an ideal. Its brevity and focus make it a clear example of Poe exploring bereavement and spiritual consolation in his early career.
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?
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