A Dream by Sophie Jewett

Last night, what time dreams wander east and west,

What time a dream may linger, I lay dead,

With flare of tapers pale above my head,

With weight of drifted roses on my breast;

And they, who noiseless came to watch my rest,

Looked kindly down and gentle sentence said.

One sighed ” She was but young to go to-day; “

And one ” How fiercely life with death had striven

Ere God set free her spirit, sorrow-shriven! “

One said ” The children grieve for her at play; “

And one, who bent to take a rose away,

Whispered ” Dear love, would that we had forgiven.

Some sources state that the poem is the bittersweet feeling of a dream. When we are in a dream we wish to stay there forever and never go back to our reality. While in a dream it feels amazing “like weight of drifted roses on my breast” could mean a feeling of ease shown in the first stanza. Then in the second stanza the narrator creates dialog between those who aren’t dreaming “children grieve for her at play” and “she was but young to go to-day” shows a disconnect that they are not at her spiritual level. They are longing for her since she is still in a dream. This could just show how she cannot see the world as a home and feels more comforted while dreaming. The feeling of comfort is shown all throughout the first stanza. It comes across to me that they are grieving for her rather than just watching a child dream. Sophie dealt with a lot of loss in her childhood. She had to watch her mother die in the middle of the night. It feels like this poem is Sophie trying to place herself into her mothers shoes. She states “what time a dream may linger, I lay dead” showcasing either she died in her sleep, like her mother, or she feels like she is in the other dimension. It gives a dark energy rather than a light happy dream poem through diction like “tapers pale” “noiseless” and “sorrow-striven.” She and her family are those who “looked Kindly down” at her mother’s body. What sticks out to me is “dear love, would that we had forgiven.” It’s a play on the Lord’s Prayer “as we have forgiven” meaning we forgive those who hurt us. She is expressing hurt from her mom due to her dying so young and it feels through this poem she is trying to heal through appearing prayer-like. Though she might not have been religious it appears through speaking of “God” “death” and “forgiven” she is creating her own prayer for her mother to hopefully hear. That she has forgiven her mom now realizing all she did was pass in her sleep and did not realize who she was leaving behind, her daughter. The title of her prayer could be “To Love” since it could create a broad prayer for everyone to say. I chose this poem thinking it was about dreaming because I think dreams do represent a goal, fears or even just your brain interpreting what happened the day prior. If it was about feeling disconnected from the real world in her dream, I can relate. I used to tell my brother about my dreams and he would be jealous because he could never remember one. If the first interpretation of the poem is right then most people can relate a dream can be such a happy feeling and then you’re woken up to a blaring alarm clock. Leading to a stressful feeling to start the day. I have wanted a dream to be real but wishing for a dream can just cause your reality to feel tainted. I have woken up in sleep paralysis before where my body isn’t awake but my brain is and through the symbolism of dreaming and the eerie feeling this poem reminds me of it. Some sources agree with my initial idea of the poem but when I read it all I think about is death, which is very depressing. It reminds me of a wake or an open casket. The poem through the first stanza shows a soul at peace and happy. Then in the second stanza shows those who are still on earth having to see the body. The “kind eyes” feel sad for them for going too soon. We all have been present for someone we love at a funeral but we never celebrate their life because we are obviously mourning. It’s extremely hard to understand if it was too soon. Yet I’ve never thought of the first stanza when I am present at a funeral. It’s the feeling of the good that can happen since the bad already did. The person at the funeral should be in a better place and all those people at the funeral’s lives have been changed by the life they lived. Now they will do better in life and be kinder through the impact of someone they loved dying unknowingly. We always try to be more accommodating to others’ lives and more understanding since for the time we are mourning we realize how little we know others are suffering. Everyone always says they are in a better place but Sophie expresses collateral beauty perfectly.

sources:

“What is the meaning of “A Dream” by Sophie Jewett” prompt. ChatGPT, 13 Feb. version, OpenAI, 23 April. 2023, chat.openai.com/chat.

a, n. “Sophie Jewett.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/sophie-jewett. Accessed 23 Apr. 2024.

a, n. “The Poems of Sophie Jewett.” Poems of Sophie Jewett, upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/The_poems_of_Sophie_Jewett_(IA_poemsofsophiejew00jewerich).pdf. Accessed 24 Apr. 2024.

Post by Haley Curtis

The poet I chose was Ralph Waldo Emerson since he always fascinated me in my high school literature class. I always found it weird to learn in class about a man who thinks the way we are learning is inferior to learning through nature. He thought teachers should turn to nature more than lectures and exams. He has multiple poems expressing how he is concerned that teachers have lost touch and the students do not learn but learn how to test. One of my favorite poems by Emerson is called “ Song of Nature” where he explains how experiencing nature allows growth in his life and his accomplishments rather than just focusing on facts. He focuses on the importance of understanding nature to understand all things since he states in this poem all things come from nature. By starting off the poem with the verse “ Mine are the night and morning” he already drew me in. I was curious as to what he was talking about since the beginning of the first verse felt like a second part of a thought. I quickly wanted to know what the night and morning were to him, was it his teachers? Was it how he knew all his facts? In the first stanza he uses near rhymes allowing for it to not become boring since the poem is very long by using a mix of near rhymes and rhymes it keeps the reader focused. He toys with the idea that yes we have science but what about our imagination through viewing nature. In the second stanza he speaks of knowing he doesn’t know everything. By using words like “I hid”, “dumb” and “slumber I am Strong” by choosing this diction and saying he feels strong when he is resting or quiet it shows by knowing you know less you’ll try to learn. By using the phrase “Fount of Life” he is speaking of waters used for baptism saying he has a strong belief, is learning something new or even feeling reborn. We know he feels strongly about this since he ends this stanza with the word “deluge”. Emerson always uses very strong diction instead of flowery language to show emotion. He talks about a wreath he has been making for centuries making me think he is speaking of all the knowledge he wants to teach or to show off. He thinks people have been so focused on facts for a long time through words like “centuries” and “a thousand summers” showing this way of life of just fact based knowledge has been happening longer than he’s been alive. I love how he describes nature to describe his own being. A couple of examples are “my apples ripened well” showing his ideas or his offspring are growing and have finally fully developed. This could mean he is watching his three children thrive through viewing both nature and prior knowledge. He speaks of the stars a lot here and I cannot tell because there are multiple and broken if he is relating them to past philosophers or each star being his own ideas and if broken it was an idea proven wrong. He talks about the gods and God, referring back to the creation and how everything was made. My favorite stanza is when he talks about how the tides will forever be moving but he questions his mortality. He speaks of “resting out west” but questions it. It feels powerful since I think he knows he has to die but since he hasn’t yet witnessed it in nature yet or felt that type of pain he can not imagine it yet. Emerson does not know why he feels like he cannot witness it all with how slow life is he will miss something. He uses repetition a lot through the format of a sentence or repetition of specific words that he feels are powerful. Though he loves to question what others believe to be fact he knows that his world will end once he dies but the elements will always stay. My favorite line is coincidentally at the end and it goes “My oldest force is good as new” I think it has multiple meanings. One meaning being no matter what he likes that he questions this world and everyday he has a new question.

poem:

Song of Nature

Ralph Waldo Emerson

1803 –

1882

Mine are the night and morning,
The pits of air, the gulf of space,
The sportive sun, the gibbous moon,
The innumerable days.

I hid in the solar glory,
I am dumb in the pealing song,
I rest on the pitch of the torrent,
In slumber I am strong.

No numbers have counted my tallies,
No tribes my house can fill,
I sit by the shining Fount of Life,
And pour the deluge still;

And ever by delicate powers
Gathering along the centuries
From race on race the rarest flowers,
My wreath shall nothing miss.

And many a thousand summers
My apples ripened well,
And light from meliorating stars
With firmer glory fell.

I wrote the past in characters
Of rock and fire the scroll,
The building in the coral sea,
The planting of the coal.

And thefts from satellites and rings
And broken stars I drew,
And out of spent and aged things
I formed the world anew;

What time the gods kept carnival,
Tricked out in star and flower,
And in cramp elf and saurian forms
They swathed their too much power.

Time and Thought were my surveyors,
They laid their courses well,
They boiled the sea, and baked the layers
Or granite, marl, and shell.

But he, the man-child glorious,—
Where tarries he the while?
The rainbow shines his harbinger,
The sunset gleams his smile.

My boreal lights leap upward,
Forthright my planets roll,
And still the man-child is not born,
The summit of the whole.

Must time and tide forever run?
Will never my winds go sleep in the west?
Will never my wheels which whirl the sun
And satellites have rest?

Too much of donning and doffing,
Too slow the rainbow fades,
I weary of my robe of snow,
My leaves and my cascades;

I tire of globes and races,
Too long the game is played;
What without him is summer’s pomp,
Or winter’s frozen shade?

I travail in pain for him,
My creatures travail and wait;
His couriers come by squadrons,
He comes not to the gate.

Twice I have moulded an image,
And thrice outstretched my hand,
Made one of day, and one of night,
And one of the salt sea-sand.

One in a Judaean manger,
And one by Avon stream,
One over against the mouths of Nile,
And one in the Academe.

I moulded kings and saviours,
And bards o’er kings to rule;—
But fell the starry influence short,
The cup was never full.

Yet whirl the glowing wheels once more,
And mix the bowl again;
Seethe, fate! the ancient elements,
Heat, cold, wet, dry, and peace, and pain.

Let war and trade and creeds and song
Blend, ripen race on race,
The sunburnt world a man shall breed
Of all the zones, and countless days.

No ray is dimmed, no atom worn,
My oldest force is good as new,
And the fresh rose on yonder thorn
Gives back the bending heavens in dew.

ENGL 345

Nineteenth-Century American Poetry

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Song of Nature