The First Dream
The Wind is ghosting around the house tonight
And as I lean against the door of sleep
I begin to think about the first person to dream,
How quiet he must have seemed the next morning
As the others stood around the fire
Draped in the skins of animals
Talking to each other only in vowels,
For this was long before the invention of consonants.
He might have gone off by himself to sit
On a rock and look into the mist of a lake
As he tried to tell himself what had happened,
How he had gone somewhere without going,
How he had put his arms around the neck
Of a beast that the others could touch
Only after they had killed it with stones,
How he felt its breath on his bare neck.
Then again, the first dream could have come
To a woman, though she would behave,
I suppose, much the same way,
Moving off by herself to be alone near water,
Except that the curve of her young shoulders
And the tilt of her downcast head
Would make her appear to be terribly alone,
And if you were there to notice this,
You might have gone down as the first person
To ever fall in love with the sadness of another.
Related poetry:
- Dream Girl YOU will come one day in a waver of love, Tender as dew, impetuous as rain, The tan of the sun will be on your skin, The purr of the breeze in your murmuring speech, You will pose with a hill-flower grace. You will come, with your slim, expressive arms, A poise of the head […]...
- The House Of Dust: Part 02: 02: The Fulfilled Dream More towers must yet be built-more towers destroyed- Great rocks hoisted in air; And he must seek his bread in high pale sunlight With gulls about him, and clouds just over his eyes. . . And so he did not mention his dream of falling But drank his coffee in silence, and heard in his […]...
- Love's Young Dream Oh! the days are gone, when Beauty bright My heart’s chain wove; When my dream of life, from morn till night, Was love, still love. New hope may bloom, And days may come, Of milder calmer beam, But there’s nothing half so sweet in life As love’s young dream: No, there’s nothing half so sweet […]...
- The Dream O God, in the dream the terrible horse began To paw at the air, and make for me with his blows, Fear kept for thirty-five years poured through his mane, And retribution equally old, or nearly, breathed through his nose. Coward complete, I lay and wept on the ground When some strong creature appeared, and […]...
- Dream Song 42: O journeyer, deaf in the mould, insane O journeyer, deaf in the mould, insane With violent travel & death: consider me In my cast, your first son. Would you were I by now another one, Witted, legged? I see you before me plain (I am skilled: I hear, I see)— Your honour was troubled: when you wondered—‘No’. I hear. I think I […]...
- Dream Song 131: Come touch me baby in his waking dream Come touch me baby in his waking dream Disordered Henry murmured. I’ll read you Hegel And that will hurt your mind I can’t remember when you were unkind But I will clear that block, I’ll set you on fire Along with our babies To save them up the high & ruined stairs, My growing daughters. […]...
- Dream Song 132: A Small Dream A Small Dream It was only a small dream of the Golden World, Now you trot off to bed. I’ll turn the machine off, You’ve danced & trickt us enough. Unintelligible whines & imprecations, hurled From the second floor, fail to impress your mother And I am the only other And I say go to […]...
- Siren I became a criminal when I fell in love. Before that I was a waitress. I didn’t want to go to Chicago with you. I wanted to marry you, I wanted Your wife to suffer. I wanted her life to be like a play In which all the parts are sad parts. Does a good […]...
- The Dream Dear love, for nothing less than thee Would I have broke this happy dream; It was a theme For reason, much too strong for phantasy: Therefore thou waked’st me wisely; yet My dream thou brok’st not, but continued’st it. Thou art so truth that thoughts of thee suffice To make dreams truths, and fables histories. […]...
- 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? […]...
- Dream Variations 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! […]...
- My Dead Dream HAVE YOU found me, at last, O my Dream? Seven eons ago You died and I buried you deep under forests of snow. Why have you come hither? Who bade you awake from your sleep And track me beyond the cerulean foam of the deep? Would you tear from my lintels these sacred green garlands […]...
- Dream Song 135: I heard said 'Cats that walk by their wild lone' I heard said ‘Cats that walk by their wild lone’ But Henry had need of friends. They disappeared Shall I follow my dream? Clothes disappeared in a backward sliding, zones Shot into view, pocked, exact & weird: Who is what he seem? I will tell you now a story about Speck: After other cuts, he […]...
- Dream Song 115: Her properties, like her of course & frisky & new Her properties, like her of course & frisky & new: A stale cake sold to kids, a 7-foot weed Inside in the Great Neck night, A record (‘great’), her work all over as u- Sual rejected. She odd in a bakery. The owner stand beside her And she have to sell to the brother & […]...
- Ghazal of the Better-Unbegun Too volatile, am I? too voluble? too much a word-person? I blame the soup:I’m a primordially Stirred person. Two pronouns and a vehicle was Icarus with wings. The apparatus of his selves made an ab- Surd person. The sound I make is sympathy’s:sad dogs are tied afar. But howling I become an ever more un- […]...
- A Swimmer's Dream Somno mollior unda I Dawn is dim on the dark soft water, Soft and passionate, dark and sweet. Love’s own self was the deep sea’s daughter, Fair and flawless from face to feet, Hailed of all when the world was golden, Loved of lovers whose names beholden Thrill men’s eyes as with light of olden […]...
- I Dream'd in a Dream I DREAM’D in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth; I dream’d that was the new City of Friends; Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love-it led the rest; It was seen every hour in the actions of the men […]...
- A Dream In visions 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 dream – that […]...
- THE SLAVE'S DREAM Beside the ungathered rice he lay, His sickle in his hand; His breast was bare, his matted hair Was buried in the sand. Again, in the mist and shadow of sleep, He saw his Native Land. Wide through the landscape of his dreams The lordly Niger flowed; Beneath the palm-trees on the plain Once more […]...
- The Dream I Moonlight and dew-drenched blossom, and the scent Of summer gardens; these can bring you all Those dreams that in the starlit silence fall: Sweet songs are full of odours. While I went Last night in drizzling dusk along a lane, I passed a squalid farm; from byre and midden Came the rank smell that […]...
- Dream Song 75: Turning it over, considering Turning it over, considering, like a madman Henry put forth a book. No harm resulted from this. Neither the menstruating stars (nor man) was moved At once. Bare dogs drew closer for a second look And performed their friendly operations there. Refreshed, the bark rejoiced. Seasons went and came. Leaves fell, but only a few. […]...
- Never To Dream Of Spiders Time collapses between the lips of strangers My days collapse into a hollow tube Soon implodes against now Like an iron wall My eyes are blocked with rubble A smear of perspectives Blurring each horizon In the breathless precision of silence One word is made. Once the renegade flesh was gone Fall air lay against […]...
- Dream Song 97: Henry of Donnybrook bred like a pig Henry of Donnybrook bred like a pig, Bred when he was brittle, bred when big, How he’s sweating to support them. Which birthday of the brighter darker man, The Goya of the Globe & Blackfriars, whom— Our full earth smiled on him Squeezing his old heart with a daughter loose (hostages they áre)—the world’s produced, […]...
- Dream Song 92: Room 231: the fourth week Something black somewhere in the vistas of his heart. Tulips from Tates teazed Henry in the mood To be a tulip and desire no more But water, but light, but air. Yet his nerves rattled blackly, unsubdued, & suffocation called, dream-whiskey’d pour Sirening. Rosy there Too fly my Phil & Ellen roses, pal. Flesh-coloured men […]...
- A Day Dream On a sunny brae, alone I lay One summer afternoon; It was the marriage-time of May With her young lover, June. From her mother’s heart, seemed loath to part That queen of bridal charms, But her father smiled on the fairest child He ever held in his arms. The trees did wave their plumy crests, […]...
- A Dream Lies Dead A dream lies dead here. May you softly go Before this place, and turn away your eyes, Nor seek to know the look of that which dies Importuning Life for life. Walk not in woe, But, for a little, let your step be slow. And, of your mercy, be not sweetly wise With words of […]...
- As a World Would Have It Shall I never make him look at me again? I look at him, I look my life at him, I tell him all I know the way to tell, But there he stays the same. Shall I never make him speak one word to me? Shall I never make him say enough to show My […]...
- The Dream Believe me, this was true last night, Tho’ it is false to-day. A. M. F. Robinson. A fair dream to my chamber flew: Such a crowd of folk that stirred, Jested, fluttered; only you, You alone of all that band, Calm and silent, spake no word. Only once you neared my place, And your hand […]...
- For Bartleby The Scrivener “Every time we get a big gale around here some people just refuse to batten down.” We estimate that Ice skating into a sixty Mile an hour wind, fully exerting The legs and swinging arms You will be pushed backward An inch every twenty minutes. In a few days, depending on The size of the […]...
- Ay, workman, make me a dream 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....
- The Dream-Follower A dream of mine flew over the mead To the halls where my old Love reigns; And it drew me on to follow its lead: And I stood at her window-panes; And I saw but a thing of flesh and bone Speeding on to its cleft in the clay; And my dream was scared, and […]...
- 3. Song-I dream'd I lay I DREAM’D I lay where flowers were springing Gaily in the sunny beam; List’ning to the wild birds singing, By a falling crystal stream: Straight the sky grew black and daring; Thro’ the woods the whirlwinds rave; Tress with aged arms were warring, O’er the swelling drumlie wave. Such was my life’s deceitful morning, Such […]...
- The Dream I have a dream To fill the golden sheath Of a remembered day…. (Air Heavy and massed and blue As the vapor of opium… Domes Fired in sulphurous mist… Sea Quiescent as a gray seal… And the emerging sun Spurting up gold Over Sydney, smoke-pale, rising out of the bay….) But the day is an […]...
- The Dream I WOKE to find my pillow wet With the tears for deeds deep hid in sleep. I knew no sorrow here, but yet The tears fell softly through the deep. Your eyes, your other eyes of dream, Looked at me through the veil of blank; I saw their joyous, starlit gleam Like one who watches […]...
- Song Of A Dream ONCE in the dream of a night I stood Lone in the light of a magical wood, Soul-deep in visions that poppy-like sprang; And spirits of Truth were the birds that sang, And spirits of Love were the stars that glowed, And spirits of Peace were the streams that flowed In that magical wood in […]...
- A Last Confession What lively lad most pleasured me Of all that with me lay? I answer that I gave my soul And loved in misery, But had great pleasure with a lad That I loved bodily. Flinging from his arms I laughed To think his passion such He fancied that I gave a soul Did but our […]...
- What do animals dream? Do they dream of past lives and unlived dreams Unspeakably human or unimaginably bestial? Do they struggle to catch in their slumber What is too slippery for the fingers of day? Are there subtle nocturnal intimations To illuminate their undreaming hours? Are they haunted by specters of regret Do they visit their dead in drowsy […]...
- Dream Song 69: Love her he doesn't but the thought he puts Love her he doesn’t but the thought he puts Into that young woman Would launch a national product Complete with TV spots & skywriting Outlets in Bonn & Tokyo I mean it Let it be known that nine words have not passed Between herself and Henry; Looks, smiles. God help Henry, who deserves it all […]...
- The Deepest Dream The deepest dream is of mad governors, Down, down we feel it, till the very crust Of the world cracks, and where there was no dust, Atoms of ruin rise. Confusion stirs, And fear; and all our thoughts dark scavengers Feed on the center’s refuse. Hope is thrust Like wind away, and love sinks into […]...
- We dream it is good we are dreaming We dream it is good we are dreaming It would hurt us were we awake But since it is playing kill us, And we are playing shriek What harm? Men die externally It is a truth of Blood But we are dying in Drama And Drama is never dead Cautious We jar each other And […]...