Dreams are but interludes which Fancy makes; <br />When monarch Reason sleeps, this mimic wakes: <br />Compounds a medley of disjointed things, <br />A mob of cobblers, and a court of kings: <br />Light fumes are merry, grosser fumes are sad; <br />Both are the reasonable soul run mad; <br />And many monstrous forms in sleep we see, <br />That neither were, nor are, nor e'er can be. <br />Sometimes forgotten things long cast behind <br />Rush forward in the brain, and come to mind. <br />The nurse's legends are for truths received, <br />And the man dreams but what the boy believed. <br />Sometimes we but rehearse a former play, <br />The night restores our actions done by day; <br />As hounds in sleep will open for their prey. <br />In short, the farce of dreams is of a piece, <br />Chimeras all; and more absurd, or less.<br /><br />John Dryden<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/dreams-460/
