The English writer Walter de la Mare (1873–1956), born at Greenwich and educated at St. Paul’s Cathedral School at London, worked for a number of years in the statistics department of Standard Oil before receiving a pension which freed him to devote his time to writing. While his writing for children remains enduringly popular, de la Mare was also the author of such psychological horror stories as “All Hallows.” Even his children’s poems, for that matter, beguile by way of an otherworldly eeriness which intrudes even on instances of beauty and peace. “Dream Song,” for example, reads as a lullaby, with its rocking tetrameter and dimeter lines. The first stanza evokes the usual go-to-sleep images of fading light, owl-calls, dewfall, and the softness of twilit woods, but from that point proceeds into more unsettling territory. Still, although the dream-road leads through dangers, at the poem’s close the dreaming child marvels and smiles at this “world of wonders.” 

Dream Song 
by Walter de la Mare 

Sunlight, moonlight, 
         Twilight, starlight—
     Gloaming at the close of day, 
         And an owl calling, 
         Cool dews falling 
     In a wood of oak and may. 
 
         Lantern-light, taper-light, 
         Torchlight, no-light: 
     Darkness at the shut of day, 
         And lions roaring, 
         Their wrath pouring 
     In wild waste places far away. 
 
         Elf-light, bat-light, 
         Touchwood-light and toad-light, 
     And the sea a shimmering gloom of grey, 
         And a small face smiling 
         In a dream’s beguiling 
     In a world of wonders far away. 

___________________________________________ 

With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by the Sun’s poetry editor, Joseph Bottum of Dakota State University, with the help of the North Carolina poet Sally Thomas, The Sun’s associate poetry editor. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems will be typically drawn from the lesser-known portion of the history of English verse. In the coming months we will be reaching out to contemporary poets for examples of current, primarily formalist work, to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.