DREAM STATE POEM: The Dark Chateau
By Walter de la Mare
(from The Listeners and Other Poems, 1916)

This is an ominously rich poem in which the dreamer, and only the dreamer, stands before a once-glorious chateau, now ruinous and frightening — willing and wishing to enter… only in dreams. Walter de la Mare began writing while working as a bookkeeper in the 1890s. He wrote poetry, stories, and novels, and gained renown for his work in children’s literature. Themes of dream-like imaginations and visions are a consistent through line throughout his entire body of work, most especially pronounced in his poetry.

Have you visited a dark chateau, in your dreams?