"A Dream" (A Poem)

Published in 1877 within Songs, Ballads, and Stories, William Allingham’s “A Dream” details the narrator’s vision – be it through a dream or actual sight – of a dead procession, including his own mother, during a moonlit night. As Alan Warner explains, the haunting, dreamlike mood of the poem has been echoed countless times by other poets, including William Butler Yeats during his earlier works.[1]

I heard the dogs howl in the moonlight night;
I went to the window to see the sight;
All the Dead that ever I knew
Going one by one and two by two.

On they pass'd, and on they pass'd;
Townsfellows all, from first to last;
Born in the moonlight of the lane,
Quench'd in the heavy shadow again.

Schoolmates, marching as when they play'd
At soldiers once – but now more staid;
Those were the strangest sight to me
Who were drown'd, I knew, in the awful sea.

Straight and handsome folk; bent and weak too;
Some that I loved, and gasp'd to speak to;
Some but a day in their churchyard bed;
Some that I had not known were dead.

A long, long crowd – where each seem'd lonely,
Yet of them all there was one, one only,
Raised a head or look'd my way:
She linger'd a moment, – she might not stay.

How long since I saw that fair pale face!
Ah! Mother dear! might I only place
My head on thy breast, a moment to rest,
While thy hand on my tearful cheek were prest!

On, on, a moving bridge they made
Across the moon-stream, from shade to shade,
Young and old, women and men;
Many long-forgot, but remembered then,

And first there came a bitter laughter;
A sound of tears a moment after;
And then a music so lofty and gay,
That every morning, day by day,
I strive to recall it if I may.[2]

Works Referenced

Allingham, William. “A Dream.” Songs, Ballads, and Stories: Including Many Now First Collected, the Rest Revised and Rearranged. London: George Bell and Sons, 1877. 14-16.

Warner, Alan. William Allingham. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1975.
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[1] Warner, 25.
[2] Allingham, 14-16.