| John Donne (1572–1631). The Poems of John Donne. 1896. | | | | Elegies | | X. The Dream |
| | | IMAGE of her whom I love, more than she, | |
| Whose fair impression in my faithful heart | |
| Makes me her medal, and makes her love me, | |
| As kings do coins, to which their stamps impart | |
| The value; go, and take my heart from hence, | 5 |
| Which now is grown too great and good for me. | |
| Honours oppress weak spirits, and our sense | |
| Strong objects dull; the more, the less we see. | |
| When you are gone, and reason gone with you, | |
| Then fantasy is queen and soul, and all; | 10 |
| She can present joys meaner than you do, | |
| Convenient, and more proportional. | |
| So, if I dream I have you, I have you, | |
| For all our joys are but fantastical; | |
| And so I ’scape the pain, for pain is true; | 15 |
| And sleep, which locks up sense, doth lock out all. | |
| After a such fruition 1 I shall wake, | |
| And, but the waking, nothing shall repent; | |
| And shall to love more thankful sonnets make, | |
| Than if more honour, tears, and pains were spent. | 20 |
| But, dearest heart and dearer image, stay; | |
| Alas! true joys at best are dream 2 enough; | |
| Though you stay here, you pass too fast away, | |
| For even at first life’s taper is a snuff. | |
| Fill’d with her love, may I be rather grown | 25 |
| Mad with much heart, than idiot with none. | |
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