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Famous Short Dream Poems

Famous Short Dream Poems. Short Dream Poetry by Famous Poets. A collection of the all-time best Dream short poems


by Langston Hughes
 What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--
And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?



by Langston Hughes
 To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done.
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes on gently,
 Dark like me-
That is my dream!

To fling my arms wide
In the face of the sun,
Dance! Whirl! Whirl!
Till the quick day is done.
Rest at pale evening...
A tall, slim tree...
Night coming tenderly
 Black like me.

by Alexander Pushkin
 Not long ago, in a charming dream,
I saw myself -- a king with crown's treasure;
I was in love with you, it seemed,
And heart was beating with a pleasure.
I sang my passion's song by your enchanting knees.
Why, dreams, you didn't prolong my happiness forever?
But gods deprived me not of whole their favor:
I only lost the kingdom of my dreams.

by Charles Baudelaire
 UNDER the overhanging yews, 
The dark owls sit in solemn state, 
Like stranger gods; by twos and twos 
Their red eyes gleam. They meditate. 

Motionless thus they sit and dream 
Until that melancholy hour 
When, with the sun's last fading gleam, 
The nightly shades assume their power. 

From their still attitude the wise 
Will learn with terror to despise 
All tumult, movement, and unrest; 

For he who follows every shade, 
Carries the memory in his breast, 
Of each unhappy journey made.

by Confucius
The sun is ever full and bright,
The pale moon waneth night by night.
    Why should this be?

My heart that once was full of light
Is but a dying moon to-night.

But when I dream of thee apart,
I would the dawn might lift my heart,
    O sun, to thee.



by Sylvia Plath
 Color of lemon, mango, peach,
These storybook villas
Still dream behind
Shutters, thier balconies
Fine as hand-
Made lace, or a leaf-and-flower pen-sketch.

Tilting with the winds,
On arrowy stems,
Pineapple-barked,
A green crescent of palms
Sends up its forked
Firework of fronds.

A quartz-clear dawn
Inch by bright inch
Gilds all our Avenue,
And out of the blue drench
Of Angels' Bay
Rises the round red watermelon sun.

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
ON a Poet's lips I slept  
Dreaming like a love-adept 
In the sound his breathing kept; 
Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses  
But feeds on the aerial kisses 5 
Of shapes that haunt Thought's wildernesses. 
He will watch from dawn to gloom 
The lake-reflected sun illume 
The blue bees in the ivy-bloom  
Nor heed nor see what things they be¡ª 10 
But from these create he can 
Forms more real than living man  
Nurslings of Immortality! 

by Nikki Giovanni

Sky Diving

I hang on the edge  of this universe  singing off-key  talking too loud  embracing myself  to cushion the fall

I shall tumble  into deep space  never in this form  or with this feeling  to return to earth

 It is not tragic

I will spiral  through that Black hole  losing skin limbs  internal organs  searing  my naked soul

Landing  in the next galaxy  with only my essence  embracing myself  as

I dream of you


by William Butler Yeats
 I dreamed that one had died in a strange place
Near no accustomed hand,
And they had nailed the boards above her face,
The peasants of that land,
Wondering to lay her in that solitude,
And raised above her mound
A cross they had made out of two bits of wood,
And planted cypress round;
And left her to the indifferent stars above
Until I carved these words:
She was more beautiful than thy first love,
But now lies under boards.

Mirage  Create an image from this poem
by Christina Rossetti
 The hope I dreamed of was a dream,
Was but a dream; and now I wake,
Exceeding comfortless, and worn, and old,
For a dream's sake.

I hang my harp upon a tree,
A weeping willow in a lake;
I hang my silent harp there, wrung and snapped
For a dream's sake.

Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart;
My silent heart, lie still and break:
Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed
For a dream's sake.

by Alexander Pushkin
 I shed my tears; my tears – my consolation;
And I am silent; my murmur is dead,
My soul, sunk in a depression’s shade,
Hides in its depths the bitter exultation.
I don’t deplore my passing dream of life --
Vanish in dark, the empty apparition!
I care only for my love’s infliction,
And let me die, but only die in love!

Why?  Create an image from this poem
by Walter de la Mare
 Ever, ever
Stir and shiver
The reeds and rushes
By the river:
Ever, ever,
As if in dream,
The lone moon's silver
Sleeks the stream.
What old sorrow,
What lost love,
Moon, reeds, rushes,
Dream you of?

by Stephen Crane
 Ay, workman, make me a dream,
A dream for my love.
Cunningly weave sunlight,
Breezes, and flowers.
Let it be of the cloth of meadows.
And -- good workman --
And let there be a man walking thereon.

by Dejan Stojanovic
Lie on the ground and listen to the grass, 
Hear the silent signals from outer space, 
Dream by making and make by dreaming, 
Feel what the trees bathed in sunlight feel, 
Gaze far to see the sea-gull emerging from the sea, 
Imagine that today is the birth of the world and greet it, 
Greet the old bird. 

by Wallace Stevens
The houses are haunted
By white night-gowns.
None are green,
Or purple with green rings,
Or green with yellow rings,
Or yellow with blue rings.
None of them are strange,
With socks of lace
And beaded ceintures.
People are not going
To dream of baboons and periwinkles.
Only, here and there, an old sailor,
Drunk and asleep in his boots,
Catches tigers
In red weather.

by Hermann Hesse
 You brothers, who are mine,
Poor people, near and far,
Longing for every star,
Dream of relief from pain,
You, stumbling dumb
At night, as pale stars break,
Lift your thin hands for some
Hope, and suffer, and wake,
Poor muddling commonplace,
You sailors who must live
Unstarred by hopelessness,
We share a single face.
Give me my welcome back.

by Bertolt Brecht
 AS from our dream we died away
Far off I felt the outer things;
Your wind-blown tresses round me play,
Your bosom’s gentle murmurings.


And far away our faces met
As on the verge of the vast spheres;
And in the night our cheeks were wet,
I could not say with dew or tears.


As one within the Mother’s heart
In that hushed dream upon the height
We lived, and then we rose to part,
Because her ways are infinite.

by Antonio Machado
 Who set, between those rocks like cinder,
to show the honey of dream,
that golden broom,
those blue rosemaries?
Who painted the purple mountains
and the saffron, sunset sky?
The hermitage, the beehives,
the cleft of the river
the endless rolling water deep in rocks,
the pale-green of new fields,
all of it, even the white and pink
under the almond trees!

by Elizabeth Bishop
 Minnow, go to sleep and dream,
 Close your great big eyes;
Round your bed Events prepare
 The pleasantest surprise.

Darling Minnow, drop that frown,
 Just cooperate,
Not a kitten shall be drowned
 In the Marxist State.

Joy and Love will both be yours,
 Minnow, don't be glum.
Happy days are coming soon--
 Sleep, and let them come...

Art  Create an image from this poem
by Herman Melville
 In placid hours well-pleased we dream 
Of many a brave unbodied scheme. 
But form to lend, pulsed life create, 
What unlike things must meet and mate: 
A flame to melt--a wind to freeze; 
Sad patience--joyous energies; 
Humility--yet pride and scorn; 
Instinct and study; love and hate; 
Audacity--reverence. These must mate, 
And fuse with Jacob's mystic heart, 
To wrestle with the angel--Art.

by Sarojini Naidu
 FROM groves of spice, 
O'er fields of rice, 
Athwart the lotus-stream, 
I bring for you, 
Aglint with dew 
A little lovely dream. 


Sweet, shut your eyes, 
The wild fire-fiies 
Dance through the fairy neem; 
From the poppy-bole 
For you I stole 
A little lovely dream.


Dear eyes, good-night, 
In golden light 
The stars around you gleam; 
On you I press 
With soft caress 
A little lovely dream.

by Charles Baudelaire
 Peace in thy hands, 
Peace in thine eyes, 
Peace on thy brow; 
Flower of a moment in the eternal hour, 
Peace with me now. 

Not a wave breaks, 
Not a bird calls, 
My heart, like a sea, 
Silent after a storm that hath died, 
Sleeps within me. 

All the night's dews, 
All the world's leaves, 
All winter's snow 
Seem with their quiet to have stilled in life's dream 
All sorrowing now.

by Ogden Nash
 This is my dream, 
It is my own dream, 
I dreamt it. 
I dreamt that my hair was kempt. 
Then I dreamt that my true love unkempt it.

by Arna Bontemps
 God give the yellow man
an easy breeze at blossom time.
Grant his eager, slanting eyes to cover
every land and dream
of afterwhile. 

Give blue-eyed men their swivel chairs
to whirl in tall buildings.
Allow them many ships at sea,
and on land, soldiers
and policemen.

For black man, God,
no need to bother more
but only fill afresh his meed
of laughter,
his cup of tears.

God suffer little men
the taste of soul's desire.

by Emily Brontë
 Riches I hold in light esteem,
And love I laugh to scorn;
And lust of fame was but a dream
That vanish'd with the morn:

And if I pray, the only prayer
That moves my lips for me
Is, "Leave the heart that now I bear,
And give me liberty!"

Yes, as my swift days near their goal,
'Tis all that I implore:
In life and death a chainless soul,
With courage to endure


Book: Reflection on the Important Things