| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895. |
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| Dream-Pedlary |
| | | Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803–49) |
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| IF there were dreams to sell, | |
| EM>What would you buy? | |
| Some cost a passing bell; | |
| Some a light sigh, | |
| That shakes from Life’s fresh crown | 5 |
| Only a rose-leaf down. | |
| If there were dreams to sell, | |
| Merry and sad to tell, | |
| And the crier rung the bell, | |
| What would you buy? | 10 |
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| A cottage lone and still, | |
| With bowers nigh, | |
| Shadowy, my woes to still, | |
| Until I die. | |
| Such pearl from Life’s fresh crown | 15 |
| Fain would I shake me down. | |
| Were dreams to have at will, | |
| This would best heal my ill, | |
| This would I buy. | |
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| But there were dreams to sell | 20 |
| Ill didst thou buy; | |
| Life is a dream, they tell, | |
| Waking, to die. | |
| Dreaming a dream to prize, | |
| Is wishing ghosts to rise; | 25 |
| And, if I had the spell | |
| To call the buried well, | |
| Which one would I? | |
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| If there are ghosts to raise, | |
| What shall I call | 30 |
| Out of hell’s murky haze, | |
| Heaven’s blue pall? | |
| Raise my lov’d long-lost boy | |
| To lead me to his joy. | |
| There are no ghosts to raise; | 35 |
| Out of death lead no ways; | |
| Vain is the call. | |
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| Know’st thou not ghosts to sue? | |
| No love thou hast. | |
| Else lie, as I will do, | 40 |
| 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, | 45 |
| Ever to last! | |
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