Dreams and Imagination

And to be king Stands not within the prospect of belief.

I am giddy, expectation whirls me round. The imaginary relish is so sweet That it enchants my sense.

Forth from his dark and lonely hiding place (Portentous sight!) the owlet Atheism, Sailing on obscene wings athwart the noon, Drops his blue-fringèd lids, and holds them close, And hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven, Cries out, “Where is it?”

Ever let the fancy roam, Pleasure never is at home.

It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice!

The beings of the mind are not of clay; Essentially immortal, they create And multiply in us a brighter ray And more beloved existence.

Strongly it bears us along in swelling and limitless billows, Nothing before and nothing behind but the sky and the ocean.

Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?

When I was a beggarly boy, And lived in a cellar damp, I had not a friend nor a toy, But I had Aladdin’s lamp.

That far land we dream about, Where every man is his own architect.

I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

Does the imagination dwell the most Upon a woman won or a woman lost?

But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday—but never jam today.

That willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

All argument is against it; but all belief is for it.

Castles in the air—they are so easy to take refuge in. And easy to build, too.

I shot an arrow into the air,

Mankind is a dream of a shadow.

Behold! human beings living in a underground den … Like ourselves … they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave.

Rarely, rarely, comest thou,

Whither is fled the visionary gleam?

I used to be Snow White … but I drifted.