I Arise From Dreams of Thee by Percy Bysshe Shelley

[Early this morning, a day after Christmas morn, I woke up with the memory of Den, in my dream, fresh in my mind. He looked so alive, teasing, as I remember him well. As is usual for me, a line from a poem, or a song, as the case may be, immediately popped into my head. This time, it’s ‘I arise from dreams of thee’.

I immediately searched the Internet for the whole poem, and got it easily enough. Incidentally, this poem is one of those included in the ‘Beauty and the Beast’ collection, as read by Ron Perlman. I had listened to it so often that I can still ‘hear’ the lines as read by Ron in his wondrous voice. And, though I studied this poem in my English lit class under Prof. Sylvia Mendez-Ventura*, it takes personal experience to render a poem meaningful. It takes distance, and age, to appreciate the fact that Shelley only lived for 30 years! To a college student, as I was once, 30 is old! But to someone like me now, 30 sounds positively young, just the age of a younger child of mine. Oh, to be 30 again. Thirty was when I had Ferri. ]

I Arise from Dreams of Thee

I ARISE from dreams of thee

In the first sweet sleep of night,

When the winds are breathing low,

And the stars are shining bright

I arise from dreams of thee,

And a spirit in my feet

Has led me — who knows how? —

To thy chamber-window, sweet!

The wandering airs they faint

On the dark, the silent stream, —

The champak odors fall

Like sweet thoughts in a dream,

The nightingale’s complaint,

It dies upon her heart,

As I must die on thine,

O, beloved as thou art!

O, lift me from the grass!

I die, I faint, I fall!

Let thy love and kisses rain

On my lips and eyelids pale,

My cheek is cold and white, alas!

My Heart beats loud and fast

Oh! press it close to thine again,

Where it will break at last!

Percy Bysshe Shelley

*As poems to be studied, the poems by Shelley, and those of Wordsworth and Keats, are less ’satisfactory’ than are, say, poems by John Donne, the metaphysical poet. The reason is obvious. One can read and understand the former perfectly and at once, without need of a re-reading, or analysis. Shelley belongs to the ‘Romantic’ poets, who rebelled against the trend in poetry which dictated that poetry should be ‘dissected’ before one could even begin to understand it. Thus, they wrote this kind of poetry, which wear their hearts on their sleeves, so to speak. I can still ’see’ and ‘hear’ Prof. Ventura reading the line, “I die! I faint! I fall!” with a bemused expression. Indeed, it’s the poetry of the young and the romantic.