Between the acting of a dreadful thing

And the first motion, all the interim is

Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream:

The Genius and the mortal instruments

Are then in council; and the state of man,

Like to a little kingdom, suffers then

The nature of an insurrection.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Julius Caesar. Act ii. Sc. 1.

I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty;

I woke, and found that life was Duty.

Was thy dream then a shadowy lie?

Toil on, poor heart, unceasingly;

And thou shalt find thy dream to be

A truth and noonday light to thee.

Ellen Sturgis Hooper (1816-1841): Life a Duty.

Those green-robed senators of mighty woods,

Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars,

Dream, and so dream all night without a stir.

John Keats (1795-1821): Hyperion. Book i.

Touch us gently, Time!

Let us glide adown thy stream

Gently,—as we sometimes glide

Through a quiet dream.

Bryan W Procter (1787-1874): Touch us gently, Time.

Such sights as youthful poets dream

On summer eyes by haunted stream.

Then to the well-trod stage anon,

If Jonson's learned sock be on,

Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,

Warble his native wood-notes wild.

John Milton (1608-1674): L'Allegro. Line 129.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: The Dream. Stanza 3.

So dear to heav'n is saintly chastity,

That when a soul is found sincerely so,

A thousand liveried angels lackey her,

Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt,

And in clear dream and solemn vision

Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear,

Till oft converse with heav'nly habitants

Begin to cast a beam on th' outward shape.

John Milton (1608-1674): Comus. Line 453.

The light that never was, on sea or land;

The consecration, and the Poet's dream.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm. Stanza 4.

Who o'er the herd would wish to reign,

Fantastic, fickle, fierce, and vain!

Vain as the leaf upon the stream,

And fickle as a changeful dream;

Fantastic as a woman's mood,

And fierce as Frenzy's fever'd blood.

Thou many-headed monster thing,

Oh who would wish to be thy king!

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Lady of the Lake. Canto v. Stanza 30.

Thou art gone from my gaze like a beautiful dream,

And I seek thee in vain by the meadow and stream.

George Linley (1798-1865): Thou art gone.

And her face so fair

Stirr'd with her dream, as rose-leaves with the air.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Don Juan. Canto iv. Stanza 29.

For hope is but the dream of those that wake.

Matthew Prior (1664-1721): Solomon on the Vanity of the World. Book iii. Line 102.

Hunt half a day for a forgotten dream.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Hart-leap Well. Part ii.

A dream itself is but a shadow.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,

"Life is but an empty dream!"

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem.

Henry W Longfellow (1807-1882): A Psalm of Life.

But there's nothing half so sweet in life

As love's young dream.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852): Love's Young Dream.

Those oft are stratagems which errors seem,

Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Criticism. Part i. Line 177.

A sight to dream of, not to tell!

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834): Christabel. Part i.

So softly death succeeded life in her,

She did but dream of heaven, and she was there.

John Dryden (1631-1701): Eleonora. Line 315.

Who has not felt how sadly sweet

The dream of home, the dream of home,

Steals o'er the heart, too soon to fleet,

When far o'er sea or land we roam?

Thomas Moore (1779-1852): The Dream of Home.

By the margin of fair Zurich's waters

Dwelt a youth, whose fond heart, night and day,

For the fairest of fair Zurich's daughters

In a dream of love melted away.

Charles Dance (1794-1863): Fair Zurich's Waters.

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)

Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace.

Leigh Hunt (1784-1859): Abou Ben Adhem.

Gone, glimmering through the dream of things that were.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto ii. Stanza 2.

For hope is but the dream of those that wake.

Matthew Prior (1664-1721): Solomon on the Vanity of the World. Book iii. Line 102.

The people's prayer, the glad diviner's theme,

The young men's vision, and the old men's dream!

John Dryden (1631-1701): Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 238.

Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;

Brief as the lightning in the collied night,

That in a spleen unfolds both heaven and earth,

And ere a man hath power to say, "Behold!"

The jaws of darkness do devour it up:

So quick bright things come to confusion.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Sc. 1.

Silently as a dream the fabric rose,

No sound of hammer or of saw was there.

William Cowper (1731-1800): The Task. Book v. The Winter Morning Walk. Line 144.

Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Ode. Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 5.

For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak

With most miraculous organ.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.

I had a dream which was not all a dream.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Darkness.