A Dream

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A Dream (1827) is one of Poe's earliest poems, a brief meditation on how a fleeting dream can be more precious than waking reality. "In visions of the dark night / I have dreamed of joy departed."
Author Edgar Allan Poe 
In visions of the dark night
I have dreamed of joy departed-
But a waking dream of life and light
Hath left me broken-hearted.

Ah! what is not a dream by day
To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him with a ray
Turned back upon the past?

That holy dream- that holy dream,
While all the world were chiding,
Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
A lonely spirit guiding.

What though that light, thro' storm and night,
So trembled from afar-
What could there be more purely bright
In Truth's day-star?