Poems about Dreams - Poem Analysis (2024)

Published in 1849, ‘A Dream Within a Dream’ by Edgar Allan Poe examines the subtleties of time and perspective.

In ‘A Dream Within a Dream,’ the speaker questions the reasons for his existence. From his perspective, his life and everything around him have become like a dream that he floats and struggles through.

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;

‘Dreams’ by Anne Bronte explores the power of dreams as the speaker fantasizes about having a child to call her own.

In ‘Dreams,’ Anne Brontë discusses the world of dreams and the difference between entering and leaving it. The speaker is alone in her home, dreaming about the company she most desires: that of an infant that sees the speaker as their mother.

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.

‘Harlem (A Dream Deferred)’ is a powerful poem by Langston Hughes, written in response to the challenges he faced as a black man in a white-dominated world. It questions the fate of deferred dreams among Harlem residents.

Ah, the American dream - a source of disappointment, motivation, and anger among many Americans. Also commonly known as ‘Harlem,’ ‘Montage of a Dream Deferred’ is a book-length poem that speaks about the lives of Harlem residents who are not experiencing the “American Dream,” but instead are having their dreams deferred.

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore—

And then run?

‘Dreams’ by Helen Hunt Jackson exists on the boundary between dream and nightmare as it explores the way in which memories of the past return to us in our sleep no matter how hard we try to forget them.

‘Dreams’ depicts how regretful memories haunt us. In this poem, the speaker discusses the negative effects that dreams and nightmares can have on us - specifically those that remind us of sorrowful memories. These are things one usually tries to forget, but they continue to return at night.

Mysterious shapes, with wands of joy and pain,

Which seize us unaware in helpless sleep,

And lead us to the houses where we keep

Our secrets hid, well barred by every chain

‘A Child’s Garden’ by Rudyard Kipling is written from the perspective of a young sick boy who is dreaming of escaping his confining and frightening life by taking to the sky in an airplane.

'A Child’s Garden' by Rudyard Kipling is about the power of dreams to ease our sorrows. In this poem, a boy diagnosed with tuberculosis dreams of leaving his lawn chair in the garden and flying above it in an airplane. There, high above, he will see the “angel-side” of clouds and “spit” on all those below riding in cars.

Now there is nothing wrong with me

Except -- I think it's called T.B.

And that is why I have to lay

Out in the garden all the day.

‘Life is but a Dream’ by Lewis Carroll is a poem that depicts the logic and illogic of dreams and life, suggesting that our entire lives are one long dream.

In this piece, Carroll uses juxtaposition to create a strange world—that of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." The poem is a tribute to the novel and its sequel. He presents images of children walking through life, "Dreaming as the days go by." As such, in this poem, our lives are simply dreams; when we die, we awaken from the dream. Just like in the "Matrix."

A boat, beneath a sunny sky

Lingering onward dreamily

In an evening of July--

‘You should appear less often in my dreams’ by Anna Akhmatova describes the difference between a dream relationship and the one that exists in real life.

This poem describes the difference between a dream relationship and one that exists in real life. The speaker describes how her imagination makes a person much better than they actually are. She protects an idealized version of them in her head, imagining that the other person flatters and praises her, unlike the real-life person, who is far less kind.

You should appear less often in my dreams,

See Also

30 Powerful Poems about Dreams to Stimulate Your Ambitions | Inspirationfeed

Since we meet so frequently;

‘Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow’ by Robert Duncan is often regarded as the poet’s best work. It analyzes the poet’s dream of a meadow while also exploring the new technique of projective verse.

‘Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow’ takes place in the poet's dream, which he believes to be a vision from one of his past lives. This dream, while it indicates that Duncan is an important person, also hints at the way Duncan died in a past life.

as if it were a scene made-up by the mind,

that is not mine, but is a made place,

‘Dream Variations’ by Langston Hughes details two slightly different dreams a Black speaker has as he is confronted with the “white day.”

‘Dream Variations’ by Langston Hughes is a thoughtful poem about the future and a single speaker’s dreams for his life and the lives of his community members. While he has high hopes for the future, he recognizes that his race may obstruct him from living the American dream.

To fling my arms wide

In some place of the sun,

To whirl and to dance

Till the white day is done.

‘Lampfall’ by Derek Walcott dives deep into an investigation of thought, dreaming, community and connection while also implying that nature and thought are more meaningful than development.

This poem is, in itself, a mere dream of the poet. As the speaker describes the world around him, everything takes on an otherworldly, ethereal quality, getting a bit blurry and metaphorical. This transition from plain English to more complex allusion, metaphor, and irregular line lengths take us on a journey into the poet's perception, where nature is in control.

Closest at lampfall

Like children, like the moth-flame metaphor,

The Coleman's humming jet at the sea's edge

‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ by John Keats is one of the best-known poems in English literature, reflecting on death, horror, and love.

'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' by John Keats exists in a dreamy fall landscape as a weary knight falls asleep in a meadow. However, his dreams quickly turn into nightmares as he is abducted by an ethereal, supernatural woman.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has withered from the lake,

And no birds sing.

‘I saw a man pursuing the horizon’ by Stephen Crane is a short but incredibly moving poem about chasing impossibilities with multiple interpretations.

Depending on how you interpret Stephen Crane's poem, one of its themes centers on a rather cynical view of one's personal pipe dreams. The pursuit of a goal is a noble thing until it's mired by irascible delusion or a refusal to acknowledge any kind of failure. But the poem also seems just as critical of those like the speaker who selfishly seeks to disenchant dreamers.

I saw a man pursuing the horizon;

Round and round they sped.

I was disturbed at this;

I accosted the man.

‘Sympathy’ by Paul Laurence Dunbar evokes a profound sense of empathy in its attempt to understand the forlorn song of those who feel they are captives unable to reach the world beyond their respective cages.

A theme of Dunbar's poem is the dream of escaping one's cage and enjoying an ever-longed-for freedom. Its first stanza illustrates that dream with depressing clarity as a pastoral landscape that the bird yearns to be reunited with. Like the caged bird, the speaker dreams of reaching a world where they aren't held captive on the basis of their skin color.

I know what the caged bird feels, alas!

When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;

When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,

‘The Singer Will Not Sing’ by Maya Angelou describes a woman whose harmonies can’t escape from between her sealed lips.

The idea of unfulfilled dreams is at the heart of this poem. The speaker discusses a woman whose harmonies are trapped within her body, unable to escape her sealed lips. She's the singer of the title.

A benison given. Unused,

No angels promised,

wings fluttering banal lies

behind their sexlessness. No

‘Dreams’ by John Henry Dryden presents a vivid illustration of the ways in which dreams are steeped in paradox and irrationality.

Dryden's poem explores the very nature of dreams and presents them at their core as chaotic and bizarre. This is the only consistent trait across dreams, and if anything, the poem attempts to comfort anyone who might be concerned that theirs are more abnormal than someone else's. The point is that dreams are an intimate part of our lives that border the ineffable because they occur when our conscious mind and reason are asleep.

Dreams are but interludes which Fancy makes;

When monarch Reason sleeps, this mimic wakes:

Compounds a medley of disjointed things,

A mob of cobblers, and a court of kings: