"Dream of Dying" by Thomas Lovell Beddoes




Shivering in fever, weak, and parched to sand, 
My ears, those entrances of word-dressed thoughts, 
My pictured eyes, and my assuring touch, 
Fell from me, and my body turned me forth 
From its beloved abode: then I was dead;		5
And in my grave beside my corpse I sat, 
In vain attempting to return: meantime 
There came the untimely spectres of two babes, 
And played in my abandoned body's ruins; 
They went away; and, one by one, by snakes		10 
My limbs were swallowed; and, at last, I sat 
With only one, blue-eyed, curled round my ribs, 
Eating the last remainder of my heart, 
And hissing to himself. O sleep, thou fiend! 
Thou blackness of the night! how sad and frightful	15 
Are these thy dreams!







The Literary Gothic