Robert William Service (Роберт Уильям Сервис)

Dreams

I had a dream, a dream of dread:
I thought that horror held the house;
A burglar bent above my bed,
He moved as quiet as a mouse.
With hairy hand and naked knife
He poised to plunge a bloody stroke,
Until despairful of my life
I shrieked with terror; and awoke.

I had a dream of weary woes:
In weather that was fit to freeze,
I thought that I had lost my cloths,
And only wore a short chemise.
The wind was wild; so catch a train
I ran, but no advance did make;
My legs were pistoning in vain -
How I was happy to awake!

I had a dream: Upon the stair
I met a maid who kissed my lips;
A nightie was her only wear,
We almost came to loving grips.
And then she opened wide a door,
And pointed to a bonny bed...
Oh blast! I wakened up before
I could discover; were we wed?

Alas! Those dreams of broken bliss,
Of wakenings too sadly soon!
With memories of sticky kiss,
And limbs so languidly a-swoon!
Alas those nightmares devil driven!
Those pantless prowlings in Pall Mall!
Oh why should some dreams be like heaven
And others so resemble hell?

Robert William Service’s other poems:

  1. Spanish Women
  2. The Prospector
  3. Playboy
  4. Pullman Porter
  5. Abandoned Dog

Poems of other poets with the same name (Стихотворения других поэтов с таким же названием):

  • John Dryden (Джон Драйден) Dreams (“Dreams are but interludes which Fancy makes”)
  • Robert Herrick (Роберт Геррик (Херрик)) Dreams (“Here we are all, by day; by night we’re hurl’d”)
  • Anne Brontë (Энн Бронте) Dreams (“While on my lonely couch I lie”)
  • John Newman (Джон Ньюмен) Dreams (“OH! miserable power”)
  • Caroline Norton (Каролина Нортон) Dreams (“SURELY I heard a voice-surely my name”)
  • Edgar Poe (Эдгар По) Dreams (“Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!”)
  • Amy Lowell (Эми Лоуэлл) Dreams (“I do not care to talk to you although”)
  • Henry Timrod (Генри Тимрод) Dreams (“Who first said “false as dreams?” Not one who saw”)

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