| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Georgian Verse. 1909. | | | | A Dream | | By William Blake (1757–1827) |
| | | 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. | |
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| Troubled, ’wilder’d, and forlorn, | 5 |
| Dark, benighted, travel-worn, | |
| Over many a tangled spray, | |
| All heart-broke I heard her say: | |
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| ‘O, my children! do they cry? | |
| Do they hear their father sigh? | 10 |
| Now they look abroad to see: | |
| Now return and weep for me.’ | |
| |
| Pitying, I drop’d a tear; | |
| But I saw a glow-worm near, | |
| Who replied: ‘What wailing wight | 15 |
| 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.’ | 20 | | | |
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