A Dream

by Edgar Allan Poe

Published 1827


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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,” one of many poems by Edgar Allan Poe, was published in 1827.