Dreams
Often I dream your big blue eyes,Though loth their meaning to confess,Regard me with a clear surpriseOf dawning tenderness.
Often I dream you gladly hearThe words I hardly dare to breathe,--The words that falter in their fearTo tell what throbs beneath.
Often I dream your hand in mineFalls like a flower at eventide,And down the path we leave a lineOf footsteps side by side.
But ah, in all my dreams of bliss,In passion's hunger, fever's drouth,I never dare to dream of this:My lips upon your mouth.
And so I dream your big blue eyes,That look on me with tenderness,Grow wide, and deep, and sad, and wise,And dim with dear distress.
Words in this poem
- gladly adv.
- Preferably; by choice. [From Glad, a.]
- falter v. t.
- To thrash in the chaff; also, to cleanse or sift, as barley.
- eventide n.
- The time of evening; evening. [AS. æfentid. See Tide.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Dreams is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Henry Van Dyke, Project Gutenberg ebook #16229; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Henry Van Dyke, Dreams, in The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16229, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/van-dyke-poems/dreams.html, id L22827.
Form and metre
Dreams is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 4 of its 5 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
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 ABAB eyesA · confessB · surpriseA · tendernessB
- 2 A-A- hearA · breathe · fearA · beneath
- 3 ABAB mineA · eventideB · lineA · sideB
- 4 ABAB blissA · drouthB · thisA · mouthB
- 5 ABAB eyesA · tendernessB · wiseA · distressB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Often I dream your big blue eyes, | 8 | /˘······ |
| Though loth their meaning to confess, | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Regard me with a clear surprise | 8 | ˘/····˘/ |
| Of dawning tenderness. | 6 | ·/˘/˘˘ |
| Often I dream you gladly hear | 8 | /˘···/˘· |
| The words I hardly dare to breathe,-- | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The words that falter in their fear | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| To tell what throbs beneath. | 6 | ······ |
| Often I dream your hand in mine | 8 | /˘······ |
| Falls like a flower at eventide, | 9 | ···/˘·/˘˘ |
| And down the path we leave a line | 8 | ········ |
| Of footsteps side by side. | 6 | ·/···· |
| But ah, in all my dreams of bliss, | 8 | ········ |
| In passion's hunger, fever's drouth, | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| I never dare to dream of this: | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| My lips upon your mouth. | 6 | ······ |
| And so I dream your big blue eyes, | 8 | ········ |
| That look on me with tenderness, | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| Grow wide, and deep, and sad, and wise, | 8 | ········ |
| And dim with dear distress. | 6 | ····˘/ |
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.