A Dream

(By : William Blake)

Title : A Dream
Author : William Blake.
Internet resource : http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-dream/diakses Wednesday,
11 Nopember 2015. 18:30.

Once a dream did weave a shade

O'er my angel-guarded bed,
That an emmet lost its way
Where on grass methought I lay.

Troubled, wildered, and forlorn,

Dark, benighted, travel-worn,
Over many a tangle spray,
All heart-broke, I heard her say:

'Oh my children! do they cry,

Do they hear their father sigh?
Now they look abroad to see,
Now return and weep for me.'

Pitying, I dropped a tear:

But I saw a glow-worm near,
Who replied, 'What wailing wight
Calls the watchman of the night?

'I am set to light the ground,

While the beetle goes his round:
Follow now the beetle's hum;
Little wanderer, hie thee home!

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 A Dream
(By : William Blake)
Title : A Dream
Author : William Blake.
Internet resource : http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-dream/diakses Wednesday,
11 Nopember 2015. 18:30.

Analysis of Poetry “A Dream”

Content

Title of the Poem A Dream (By : William Blake)

Theme Sadness : The theme of this poem is about the sadness
that can be experienced by anyone when away from
family. It is shown in this poem that a person who figured
by an a mother emmet who seems too much worrying
about her family. As in the two first lines of the third
stanza ; “ Oh my children ! do they cry, do they hear
their father sigh?”
Mood / Tone The tone of this poem seems to give the very strong
image of someone being lost, as a reader we feel fairly
sympathetic towards character especially as the start of
the fourth stanza; ‘I dropped a tear’ and when the
rhetoric question ‘do they hear their father sigh?’. Both
of these quotes also suggest that the traveller isn’t away
from home out of choice and thus creates further
sympathy
Symbol Angel-guarded bed : symbolize a best or a safest place to
dream and where the dream
can be so high and so unimpeded.
Emmet : symbolize an animal which always be in its
company.
Glow-worm : symbolize as a very small light source.
Beetle : symbolize the noise

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 Poetic Devices
Rhyme scheme Rhyme All stanzas have the same rhyme. The structure of
the rhyme is : the first and second lines of stanza are
same and so the third and the last lines are. So the rhyme
is AABB for all stanzas. As we can see below :
Once a dream did weave a shade (ed)
O'er my angel-guarded bed, (ed)
That an emmet lost its way (ay)
Where on grass methought I lay. (ay)
Type Rhyme verse
Stanzas There are five stanzas there and its name is quatrain
because every stanza consists of four lines:

Once a dream did weave a shade

O'er my angel-guarded bed,
1
That an emmet lost its way
Where on grass methought I lay.

Troubled, wildered, and forlorn,

Dark, benighted, travel-worn,
Over many a tangle spray,
2
All heart-broke, I heard her say:

'Oh my children! do they cry,

Do they hear their father sigh?
3
Now they look abroad to see,
Now return and weep for me.'

Pitying, I dropped a tear:

But I saw a glow-worm near,
Who replied, 'What wailing wight
Calls the watchman of the night?

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 'I am set to light the ground,
While the beetle goes his round:
45
Follow now the beetle's hum;
Little wanderer, hie thee home! '

Rhythm Rhythm is Trochaic - tetrameter because its contents of

accented – unaccented and has four feet.

Poetic Diction
Imagery in the poem Blake uses some figurative languages that can be
(Figure of speech) listed below :
Metaphor : O'er my angel-guarded bed ; angel-guarded
bed refers to the the safest
place to dream and where the dream can be so high and
so unimpeded.
Personification : - I heard her say ; because “her” refers
to the mother emmet.
- All lines in the third stanza; because the subject who
cry, hear, look and weep are the children of emmet.
- who replied, ‘what wailing wight calls the watchman
of the night? ; the subject who does “reply” is the glow-
worm.

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 Once a dream did weave a shade

O'er my angel-guarded bed,

ANALYSIS OF
RHYTHM

That an emmet lost its way

Where on grass methought I lay.

 Author’s biography (as the background of the poem)

William Blake, poet, painter and engraver, was one of the main conductors of
British Romanticism. “Until the last decades of the 18th century Britain had liberally
borrowed its artists (Holbein, Kneller, Van Dyke) as it did its musicians (Bononcini,
Handel, Haydn), from the rest of Europe. In poetry only did the country express its heart
and soul, preserve a unique national heritage. It was the symbolic center of the nation’s
spirit (…)” (Curran 221) . So did this art flourish in Blake’s own spirit. One of his
greatest works is “Songs of Innocence and of Experience”, written between 1789 and
1794 (Poetseers). Blake reflects the innocence of childhood in his “Songs of
Innocence” in contrast with the later experience of maturity collected in “Songs of
Experience”. In the first book, the poet tells of a dream .

Blake in the poem tells us about a dream. He conveys a feeling of abstractism by

describing the dream as weaving “a shade” over his bed, which is guarded by angels,
guardians of innocence. A bed, including Blake’s, is probably the place where
imagination can expand at its most. In this dream, while the narrator believes he is lying
on some grass, he sees an ant who has lost her way.

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