Dreams

By Arthur Symons 1865–1945 Arthur Symons
                                  I
To dream of love, and, waking, to remember you:
As though, being dead, one dreamed of heaven, and woke
      in hell.
At night my lovely dreams forget the old farewell:
Ah! wake not by his side, lest you remember too!


                                  II
I set all Rome between us: with what joy I set
The wonder of the world against my world's delight!
Rome, that hast conquered worlds, with intellectual might
Capture my heart, and teach my memory to forget!

Source: Poetry (August 1918).

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This poem originally appeared in the August 1918 issue of Poetry magazine

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August 1918
 Arthur  Symons

Biography

British poet, critic, and translator Arthur Symons was born in Wales and educated by private tutors. At 16, Symons moved to London, where he joined a vibrant literary community and participated, alongside poets like William Butler Yeats, in the notorious Rhymers’ Club, a group of poets and writers responsible for witty repartee anthologies such as The Book of the Rhymers’ Club (1892), in which Symons’s poems appeared.

Symons’s . . .

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Poem Categorization

SUBJECT Activities, Travels & Journeys, Love, Unrequited Love, Heartache & Loss

POET’S REGION England

Poetic Terms Symbolist

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