"Dream-Pedlary i. If there were dreams to sell. What would you buy? Some cost a passing bell; Some a light sigh, That shakes from Life's fresh crown 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? ii. A cottage lone and still, With bowers nigh,"
"It has a music that lifts it immediately from the page, and, although it questions anticipated regularities of scansion, rhyme scheme and form, these minor instabilities in fact contribute to its effectiveness. The first line, for instance, has various rhythmic possibilities: it works well if scanned as two double dactyls (If there were dreams to sell), but also fits the bill as iambic trimeter (If there were dreams to sell), or, perhaps most appealingly, a combination: If there were dreams to sell. Awareness of that flexibility"
The poem imagines a market of dreams and asks which dreams one would buy, weighing small comforts against profound longings. The narrator desires a quiet cottage for solace and contemplates raising ghosts to reclaim a lost child, yet acknowledges the futility of summoning the dead. The poem moves between hope, grief, and an uneasy consolation that falsehood or surrender can render dreams apparently true. The lyric employs musical phrasing and subtle metrical irregularities. The opening line supports multiple metrical readings, and that rhythmic flexibility enhances interpretive depth and expressive effect.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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