“Longing” For The Dream Lover Not The Green Monster

In order to feel the full impact of MY words, please take a deep breath and let your creative side enjoy 115 words of emotionally charged poetry by one of the major poets of the Victorian period in 1822.

“Longing” By Matthew Arnold

Longing
by Matthew Arnold

Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!
For so the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.

Come, as thou cam’st a thousand times,
A messenger from radiant climes,
And smile on thy new world, and be
As kind to others as to me!

Or, as thou never cam’st in sooth,
Come now, and let me dream it truth,
And part my hair, and kiss my brow,
And say, My love why sufferest thou?

Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!
For so the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.

Analysis Of The Poem “Longing” By Matthew Arnold

This poem is rather easy to understand compared to many other poems.

The theme of the poem, “Longing” is about being in love. Ahhh yes, that wonderful feeling I talk about all the time because I am SUCH a romantic at heart. Although love can heal and comfort, it can also rip your heart completely apart to the point you think you will die at any moment from the pain of it. Surely you can relate.

In the poem, the man who is speaking is in love and he won’t see his beloved until the morning. He implores his beloved to “come to me in my dreams” to fulfill his desires since they won’t be together during the night and he misses and craves her so much. His beloved may be just a dream girl or she may actually be someone that he worries about during the day because of distance, choice or death.

Crave. It is such a powerful word that conjures up the full impact of the man’s emotions of romantic love and longing for his beloved.

Synonyms for CRAVE: long for, yearn for, desire, want, wish for, hunger for, thirst for, sigh for, pine for, hanker after, covet, lust after, ache for, set one’s heart on, dream of, be bent on; be dying for

In the first stanza, he writes, “For So the night will more than pay, The hopeless longing of the day.” This means that the man believes if he is able to dream of his beloved during the night, he will not be in so much pain and suffering while waiting to see her in the morning.

“As thou never cam’st in sooth” leads the reader to believe that his beloved has actually been completely unable to be with him during the day because they are parted by death which would explain his constant longing for her. However, if she will come to him in his dreams, she will bring happiness, light, and love to relieve the poet’s life of the longing pain he now feels.

In the third stanza, the man’s longing and pain for his beloved’s presence and touch is evident as he writes, “And part my hair, and kiss my brow.” He is sure that if she will come to him in the night and do these things for him, it will make the longing he has bearable and quell his hopelessness. The man has a love so intense and sincere that he wants to believe his dreams of his beloved to be true.

Longing In My Dreams

Have you ever gone to bed hoping to dream of someone because you missed them so badly and just wanted to feel them close? It has been a long time since I remember any dream that I have and I almost always only have dreams about running away from people or monsters that are trying to kill me. Sick, huh?

However, if I tell you what being murdered signifies in dreams, it will make perfect sense. Murders in dreams reflect deep and powerful emotions and issues that have been completely resolved in a way that you don’t like. Or the dream indicates that you are trying to get them to end and find closure of an issue that is causing you to feel angry, shocked, nervous, betrayed, overwhelmed, disappointed or conflicted.

Our subconscious tries to solve our problems while we sleep. That’s why sometimes you wake up in the morning and you have an answer to the thing you were trying to decide or figure out. Of course, other factors such as movies, television shows, books and going to bed on a full stomach can contribute to dreaming wacky scenarios.

The other day I watched a crazy video about a couple men who were faking being zombie like people and there was blood, guts and body parts everywhere. Plus, Alyssa loves watching the television show called, “The Walking Dead” and I saw that this week too. If you add to that the fact that I have several unresolved issues I’m working on in my life, it explains why a GIANT green, slimy, angry monster man was chasing after me in a large building while killing, ripping other people to shreds and partially eating them.

When I woke up, I could still smell the warm, green slime of the monster’s body and felt the impending doom of him catching me. It took a couple days to actually shake off the feeling because it was such a vivid and powerful dream. Toward the end of my monster dream, I was in a totally packed elevator and we were all trying to get to the safety of the first floor.

The powerful, GIANT slimy, angry, green monster man suddenly appeared at the opening of the elevator, swooped in and grabbed five people at once on the opposite side of the elevator from where I stood. I KNEW he was looking for me, so as he stepped into the elevator, I stepped out and started running toward the right where the stairs were located. I glanced back at the elevator when I got to the opening of the stairwell and could see blood and guts flying in the air out of the elevator, so I took off running down the stairs as fear gripped my loud beating heart and overwhelmed my senses.

I heard the monster at the top of the stairs coming down as fast as he could to get me…the only person in the stairwell… then I woke up. I actually felt sick when I woke up and I was very aware of the issues and pain that are still unresolved in my life. The brain, our emotions and life are strange things, don’t you think?

I definitely need a dream lover like Matthew Arnold’s to come “part my hair, and kiss my brow, And say, My love why sufferest thou?” What happens after that could be unpublishable on my blog.

I know a few of you just raised your brows and I am laughing out loud right now!