Dreams Essay, Research Paper

1 ? 11 ? 2001

?DREAMS?

~ An Analysis

The poem ?Dreams? by Cecil Frances Alexander portrays very strong imagery, and has a message that ties in with the theme of this poetry notebook. The emotion shows the speakers feelings about being asleep as to being awake. Although there is nothing original about the layout and rhyme scheme of the poem, Alexander has a way of showing ones love for this dream world in which he knows only exists in sleep.

When looked at in a general way, this poem seems as if the speaker knows of a beautiful place just over the mountains. However, when looked at through the eyes of a dreamer, one can see the true beauty behind the poets? words. When a person sleeps they fall into a different state completely then when they were awake. They are still moving around and interacting with others as far as they know, but everything that happens comes from their mind and spirit, rather than the physical world. The place that the speaker shows in this poem is a well-remembered dream world. The mountains are the state of being awake. They are what block the dream world, just as when we are awake we cannot see our dream worlds.

Throughout the majority of the poem, the speaker describes this delightful place, giving the feeling that he truly loves being there. However, the last two lines show that he knows that he cannot go to this place whenever he wants, but must wait for them to come to him in his slumber.

The visual layout of the poem, the punctuation, and the rhyme scheme (a, b, a, b, c, d, c, d . . .) are very traditional ways of writing. This may be because the author truly wanted one to focus on the point of his poem, rather than the looks of it. Alliteration plays a strong roll in the first stanza, with the ?b? and ?g? sounds. These words (Beyond, boulder, green, growth) all have a very strong pronounced sound to them, giving the poem a secure sure feeling.

Overall, Alexander does an excellent job of getting his message across to whoever may stumble across these words.

Self.