To M. S. G. : When I Dream That You Love Me
To M. S. G. : When I Dream That You Love Me - meaning Summary
Longing Confined to Dreams
Byron addresses M.S.G. (likely Mary Chaworth), imagining her love only in dreams. The speaker finds rapturous consolation in sleep yet immediate sorrow on waking. Sleep is both refuge and torment: he longs for its heavenly illusion and even contemplates resignation to death for that taste of bliss. He pleads forgiveness for any dream-sin and insists that nightly visions, though transient, are his only solace.
Read Complete AnalysesWhen I dream that you love me, you’ll surely forgive; Extend not your anger to sleep; For in visions alone your affection can live,– I rise, and it leaves me to weep. Then, Morpheus! envelope my faculties fast, Shed o’er me your languor benign; Should the dream of to-night but resemble the last, What rapture celestial is mine! They tell us that slumber, the sister of death, Mortality’s emblem is given; To fate how I long to resign my frail breath, If this be a foretaste of heaven! Ah! frown not, sweet lady, unbend your soft brow, Nor deem me to happy in this; If I sin in my dream, I atone it for now, Thus doom’d but to gaze upon bliss. Though in visions, sweet lady, perhaps you may smile, Oh, think not my penance deficient! When dreams of your presence my slumbers beguile, To awake will be torture sufficient.
Feel free to be first to leave comment.