Poem of the week: A Dream by Matthew Arnold

A reverie on a Swiss mountain stream's descent is packed with sensuous details, carrying the reader down to an allegorical sea

John Cowper Powys described Matthew Arnold in The Pleasures of Literature as "the great amateur of English poetry" who "always has the air of an ironic and urbane scholar chatting freely, perhaps a little indiscreetly, with his not very respectful pupils."

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