Why Fades A Dream

Paul Laurence Dunbar 1872 (Dayton) – 1906



WHY fades a dream?
An iridescent ray
Flecked in between the tryst
Of night and day.
Why fades a dream? —
Of consciousness the shade
Wrought out by lack of light and made
Upon life's stream.
Why fades a dream?
That thought may thrive,
So fades the fleshless dream;
Lest men should learn to trust
The things that seem.
So fades a dream,
That living thought may grow
And like a waxing star-beam glow
Upon life's stream
So fades a dream.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

25 sec read
104

Quick analysis:

Scheme AbcbAddAAeafaAggAA
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 430
Words 84
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 18

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Paul Laurence Dunbar was a seminal American poet of the late 19th and early 20th centuries Dunbar gained national recognition for his 1896 Lyrics of a Lowly Life one poem in the collection being Ode to Ethiopia more…

All Paul Laurence Dunbar poems | Paul Laurence Dunbar Books

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