The Dream

Dear love, for nothing less than thee
Would I have broke this happy dream ;
It was a theme
For reason, much too strong for fantasy.
Therefore thou waked'st me wisely ; yet
My dream thou brokest not, but continued'st it.
Thou art so true that thoughts of thee suffice
To make dreams truths, and fables histories ;
Enter these arms, for since thou thought'st it best,
Not to dream all my dream, let's act the rest.

As lightning, or a taper's light,
Thine eyes, and not thy noise waked me ;
Yet I thought thee
—For thou lovest truth—an angel, at first sight ;
But when I saw thou saw'st my heart,
And knew'st my thoughts beyond an angel's art,
When thou knew'st what I dreamt, when thou knew'st when
Excess of joy would wake me, and camest then,
I must confess, it could not choose but be
Profane, to think thee any thing but thee.

Coming and staying show'd thee, thee,
But rising makes me doubt, that now
Thou art not thou.
That love is weak where fear's as strong as he ;
'Tis not all spirit, pure and brave,
If mixture it of fear, shame, honour have ;
Perchance as torches, which must ready be,
Men light and put out, so thou deal'st with me ;
Thou camest to kindle, go'st to come ; then I
Will dream that hope again, but else would die.

In this poem the narrator is woken from a dream by the same person that he claims that he was dreaming about (1-2). This poem has many similarities with Donne‘s other more popular poem ‘The Flea’ in which the narrator tires to trick the woman into coming to bed with him with the excuse of the pinch of a flea (Where at Donne’s times it was though that the blood of two lovers mingled in a sexual intercourse). Unlike in ‘The Flea’ however Donne uses very complicated imagery in this poem to describe the dream. What the narrator uses to convince the woman to come to bed with him in this poem is the excuse of reality being stronger than fantasy and that he saw her in her dreams just like she was in reality, so his dreams had to come true. This is a strange justification for the narrator towards the woman. In the actual poem what the narrator says is (4) ‘For reason much too strong for fantasy’, in the poem the narrator exchanges the words reason with what is meant for reality, in this way creating a pun. Reason being used instead of reality might take into consideration an ancient definition of ‘reason’ which means ’treatment that brings satisfaction’, the same ‘treatment’ for which the narrator is looking for the woman.

http://sethchaos.blogspot.com/2006/06/examination-of-john-donnes-dream.html