Dream-Pedlary

Thomas Lovell Beddoes

1.

If there were dreams to sell,

   What would you buy?

Some cost a passing bell;

   Some a light sigh,

That shakes from Life’s fresh crown

Only a rose-leaf down.

If there were dreams to sell,

Merry and sad to tell,

And the crier rang the bell,

   What would you buy?

2.

A cottage lone and still,

   With bowers nigh,

Shadowy, my woes to still,

   Until I die.

Such pearls from Life’s fresh crown

Fain would I shake me down.

Were dreams to have at will,

This would best heal my ill,

   This would I buy.

3.

But there were dreams to sell

   Ill didst thou buy;

Life is a dream, they tell,

   Waking, to die.

Dreaming a dream to prize,

Is wishing ghosts to rise;

And if I had the spell

To call the buried well,

   Which one should I?

4.

If there are ghosts to raise,

   What shall I call,

Out of hell’s murky haze,

   Heaven’s blue pall?

Raise my loved long-lost boy,

To lead me to his joy. –

   There are no ghosts to raise;

   Out of death lead no ways;

      Vain is the call.

5.

Know’st thou not ghosts to sue,

   No love thou hast.

Else lie, as I will do,

   And breathe thy last.

So out of Life’s fresh crown

Fall like a rose-leaf down.

   Thus are the ghosts to woo;

   Thus are all dreams made true,

      Ever to last!

Fonte (versos 1-4 da estrofe 2): Carpeaux, O. M. 2011. História da literatura ocidental, vol. 3. Brasília, Senado Federal. Poema publicado em livro em 1851.