Drie Droom-gedichten van de schrijver Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849)
A DREAM
In vision 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 dreamthat holy dream, While all the world were chiding, Hath cheered as a lovely beam, A lonely spirit guiding.
What thought that light, thro' storm and night, So trembled from afar What could there be more purely bright In Truth's day-star? (1827)
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DREAMS
OH! That my young life were a lasting dream! My spirit not awakening, till the beam Of an Eternity should bring the morrow. Yes! though that long dream were of hopeless sorrow, 'Twere better than the cold reality Of waking life, to him whose heart must be, And hath been still, upon the lovely earth, A chaos of deep passion from his birth. But should it be that dream eternally Continuingas dreams have been to me In my young boyhoodshould it thus be given, 'Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven. For I have revelled when the sun was bright I' the summer sky, in dreams of living light And loveliness, have left my very heart Inclines of my imaginary apart * From mine own home, with beings that have been Of mine own thoughtwhat more could I have seen? 'Twas onceand only onceand that wild hour From my remembrance shall not passsome power Or spell had bound me'twas the chilly wind Came o'er me in the night, and left behind Its image on my spiritor the moon Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noon Too coldlyor the starshowe'er it was That dream was that night-windlet it pass. I have been happyand I love the theme: Dreams! in their vivid colouring of life As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife Of semblance with reality which brings To the delirious eye, more lovely things Of paradise and Loveand all my own! Than young Hope in his sunniest hour has known.
[* De editor van het boek met onder meer Poe's Poems is echter van mening dat in die regel zou moeten staan: In climes of my imagining apart.]
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A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM
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: Yet, if hope has flown away In a night or in a day, In a vision or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see of seem Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers through the deep, While I weepwhile I weep! O God! can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream? (1849)
Cultuurspectrum
