Dreams
We have our dreams; not happiness.Great cities are upon the hillTo lighten all our dream, and stillWe have no cities to possessBut cities built of bitterness.
We see gay fellows top to toe,And girls in rainbow beauty bright--’Tis but of silly dreams I write,For up and down the streets we know,The scavengers and harlots go.
Give me a dozen men whose themeIs honesty, and we will setOn high the banner of dreams ... and yetThousands will pass us in a stream,Nor care a penny what we dream.
About this text
Dreams is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, 1908-1919, Project Gutenberg ebook #51575; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Drinkwater, Dreams, in Poems, 1908-1919 (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #51575, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/drinkwater-poems/dreams.html, id L23128.
Form and metre
Dreams is 15 lines in 3 stanzas of 5 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBAA. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABBAA happinessA · hillB · stillB · possessA · bitternessA
- 2 ABBAA toeA · brightB · writeB · knowA · goA
- 3 ABBAA themeA · setB · yetB · streamA · dreamA
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| We have our dreams; not happiness. | 9 | ··/˘··/˘˘ |
| Great cities are upon the hill | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| To lighten all our dream, and still | 8 | ·/˘·/··· |
| We have no cities to possess | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| But cities built of bitterness. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘˘ |
| We see gay fellows top to toe, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And girls in rainbow beauty bright-- | 8 | ···/·/˘· |
| ’Tis but of silly dreams I write, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| For up and down the streets we know, | 8 | ········ |
| The scavengers and harlots go. | 8 | ·/˘˘·/˘· |
| Give me a dozen men whose theme | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Is honesty, and we will set | 8 | ·/˘˘···· |
| On high the banner of dreams ... and yet | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| Thousands will pass us in a stream, | 8 | /˘······ |
| Nor care a penny what we dream. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.