My Dream by Christina Georgina Rossetti
A speaker recounts a dream beside the Euphrates in which jeweled crocodiles emerge and one crowned crocodile devours all the others. As it sleeps, it shrinks and its imperial splendor fades; a white winged vessel stills the river, and the crocodile rises, sheds tears, and wrings its hands. Asked what the dream means, the speaker offers no explanation.
By Christina Georgina Rossetti · Genre: Narrative Poetry, Dream Literature · 600 words
First lines
Hear now a curious dream I dreamed last night, / Each word whereof is weighed and sifted truth.
I stood beside Euphrates while it swelled / Like overflowing Jordan in its youth: / It waxed and colored sensibly to sight, / Till out of myriad pregnant waves there welled / Young crocodiles, a gaunt blunt-featured crew, / Fresh-hatched perhaps and daubed with birthday dew. / The rest if I should tell, I fear my friend, / My closest friend, would deem the facts untrue; / And therefore it were wisely left untold; / Yet if you will, why, hear it to the end.
Genres
- Narrative Poetry — Rhymed verse recounts the crocodiles’ emergence, one ruler’s destruction of its kin, and its response to an approaching vessel.
- Dream Literature — The speaker explicitly presents the events as a dream from the previous night and declines to explain its meaning.
Tags
dreams · crocodiles · kingship · cannibalism · Euphrates
What this Textopian page supports
My Dream is listed on Textopian as a poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti, dated Date unknown.
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- Work type: Poem
- Author: Christina Georgina Rossetti
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Narrative Poetry, Dream Literature
- Length: 600 words
- Structure: 1 section, 4 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)
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