To One in Bedlam
Ernest Dowson
1867 to 1900
Track 1
Reconstruct the poem by dragging each line into its correct position. Your goal is to reassemble the original poem as accurately as possible. As you move the lines, you'll see whether your arrangement is correct, helping you explore the poem's flow and meaning. You can also print out the jumbled poem to cut up and reassemble in the classroom. Either way, take your time, enjoy the process, and discover how the poet's words come together to create something truly beautiful.
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Lift his long, laughing reveries like enchanted wine,
With their stupidity! Know they what dreams divine
Those scentless wisps of straw that, miserable, line
And make his melancholy germane to the stars'?
Thy moon-kissed roses seem: better than love or sleep,
His strait, caged universe, whereat the dull world stares.
With delicate, mad hands, behind his sordid bars,
Am I not fain of all thy lone eyes promise me;
All their days, vanity? Better than mortal flowers,
O lamentable brother! if those pity thee,
Surely he hath his posies, which they tear and twine;
The star-crowned solitude of thine oblivious hours!
Half a fool's kingdom, far from men who sow and reap,
Pedant and pitiful. O, how his rapt gaze wars