Dream and Return
Poems About Missing Someone Far Away
Love PoemsEcho
Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.
Oh dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet;
Where thirsting longing eyes
Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.
Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
My very life again though cold in death:
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago.
Overview Short Summary
The speaker longs for a beloved to return through dreams and memory. It is a powerful poem for missing someone far away, especially when love feels unreachable.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Longing: The repeated call to ‘come’ expresses deep emotional need.
- Dreams: Dreams become the only place where the beloved can return.
- Memory: Past love lives on through remembered voice, face, and touch.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is aching, intimate, and dreamlike. The mood is tender but deeply sorrowful.
Craft Literary Devices
- Repetition: The word ‘come’ creates a prayer-like rhythm.
- Oxymoron: ‘Bitter sweet’ captures love that comforts and hurts at once.
- Imagery: Night, dreams, eyes, and breath make absence feel personal.
A Birthday
My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a watered shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.
Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.
Overview Short Summary
The speaker celebrates the arrival of love as if life itself has begun again. For long distance readers, it fits the joy of reunion after waiting.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Reunion: The repeated idea that love has come gives the poem its celebratory force.
- Joy: The speaker’s heart is compared to rich, living, beautiful things.
- Renewal: Love becomes a birthday, a beginning, and a new life.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is joyful, rich, and celebratory. The mood is bright and romantic.
Craft Literary Devices
- Simile: The speaker compares the heart to a bird, tree, and shell.
- Imagery: Silk, gold, grapes, doves, and pomegranates create a lavish celebration.
- Repetition: The closing line reinforces love’s arrival.
I Loved You First
I loved you first: but afterwards your love
Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song
As drowned the friendly cooings of my dove.
Which owes the other most? my love was long,
And yours one moment seemed to wax more strong;
I loved and guessed at you, you construed me
And loved me for what might or might not be—
Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.
For verily love knows not “mine” or “thine;”
With separate “I” and “thou” free love has done,
For one is both and both are one in love:
Rich love knows nought of “thine that is not mine;”
Both have the strength and both the length thereof,
Both of us, of the love which makes us one.
Overview Short Summary
The poem rejects the idea of measuring who loves more. It suits deep long distance love because it presents love as shared strength rather than competition.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Mutual devotion: The speaker refuses to divide love into mine and yours.
- Unity: The poem insists that real love makes two people one.
- Emotional balance: Love is not measured by amount but by shared truth.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is reflective, intimate, and assured. The mood is warm and thoughtful.
Craft Literary Devices
- Metaphor: The beloved’s love becomes a loftier song that outsoars the speaker’s.
- Contrast: ‘I’ and ‘thou’ are replaced by unity.
- Rhetorical question: The question about who owes more challenges the idea of measuring love.
To Lucasta Going Beyond the Seas
If to be absent were to be
Away from thee;
Or that when I am gone
You or I were alone;
Then, my Lucasta, might I crave
Pity from blustering wind or swallowing wave.
But I’ll not sigh one blast or gale
To swell my sail,
Or pay a tear to ’suage
The foaming blue god’s rage;
For whether he will let me pass
Or no, I’m still as happy as I was.
Though seas and lands be ’twixt us both,
Our faith and troth,
Like separated souls,
All time and space controls:
Above the highest sphere we meet
Unseen, unknown, and greet as angels greet.
So then we do anticipate
Our after-fate,
And are alive i’ th’ skies,
If thus our lips and eyes
Can speak like spirits unconfined
In heaven, their earthy bodies left behind.
Overview Short Summary
The speaker argues that absence is not the same as being truly away from the beloved. Seas and lands may separate bodies, but faith keeps the lovers spiritually close.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Spiritual closeness: The poem says true love can meet above time and space.
- Physical distance: Seas, lands, wind, and waves represent the obstacles between lovers.
- Faithfulness: The speaker trusts the bond even while traveling away.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is confident, spiritual, and loyal. The mood is comforting for anyone separated by distance.
Craft Literary Devices
- Metaphor: The lovers are imagined as separated souls that still control time and space.
- Imagery: Winds, waves, seas, and skies create the world of travel and distance.
- Contrast: Physical absence is contrasted with emotional presence.
To Lucasta Going to the Wars
Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind,
That from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind
To war and arms I fly.
True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.
Yet this inconstancy is such
As thou too shalt adore;
I could not love thee, Dear, so much,
Loved I not Honour more.
Overview Short Summary
The speaker leaves the beloved for war, but argues that honor is part of the same character that makes his love meaningful. It fits long distance relationships shaped by duty or service.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Duty: The speaker’s departure is caused by a public obligation.
- Love and honor: The poem links faithful love with moral courage.
- Separation: The beloved is left behind while the speaker goes into danger.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is noble, restrained, and persuasive. The mood is bittersweet.
Craft Literary Devices
- Personification: War is described as a new mistress, creating tension between love and duty.
- Paradox: The speaker claims he loves better because he loves honor too.
- Contrast: The quiet beloved is contrasted with arms and battle.
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