Assurance
So hot right now.
Last night I slept, and when I woke her kiss
Still floated on my lips. For we had strayed
Together in my dream, through some dim glade,
Where the shy moonbeams scarce dared light our bliss.
The air was dank with dew, between the trees,
The hidden glow-worms kindled and were spent.
Cheek pressed to cheek, the cool, the hot night-breeze
Mingled our hair, our breath, and went,
As sporting with our passion. Low and deep
Spake in mine ear her voice: "And didst thou dream,
This could be buried? This could be sleep?
And love be thralled to death! Nay whatso seem,
Have faith, dear heart; THIS IS THE THING THAT IS!"
Thereon I woke and on my lips her kiss.
— Emma Lazarus
Analysis
🧠 STRUCTURE & FORM
Sonnet form, sort of:
14 lines, but not a strict Petrarchan or Shakespearean sonnet.
Rhyme scheme is loose AF: it goes ABBA CBA DED FEF, which is unusual—like the dream it describes, the form is warped.
Enjambment is thick—it bleeds line to line, mimicking how dreams blur edges.
Volta (the turn):
Comes in line 9: “Spake in mine ear her voice…”
→ Boom. Voice speaks, message hits, dream cracks open.
🔥 TONE & MOOD
Sultry and ghostly, a bit haunted. It’s love that transcends time and mortality.
Think: the hot melancholy of dreaming about someone you love who’s gone, or maybe never existed at all.
Mood swings:
Starts soft and erotic → dips into eerie nature imagery → ends with cosmic reassurance and a lingering kiss.
🌒 THEMES
Dream vs. Reality:
Is the dream more real than waking life? The speaker’s not sure.
“THIS IS THE THING THAT IS” – the dream becomes ontologically truer than reality. Spooky.
Eros and Thanatos (Love and Death):
This poem flirts hard with death.
The lover speaks from the edge of the void, maybe even the grave. Her voice says: love doesn’t die. That’s some powerful resurrection energy.
Time Collapse:
Past and present, sleep and wakefulness, life and death, all mashed up. The poem says: stop thinking of time as linear, bro.
Faith in Love’s Reality:
The ultimate climax: “Have faith, dear heart.” The poem says love is the realest thing in a world full of illusions. Not the dream. Not the waking. But love.
🔍 DICTION & IMAGERY
“kiss / Still floated on my lips” → sensory, ethereal, lingering. A ghost of desire.
“dim glade,” “shy moonbeams,” “dank with dew” → thick-ass atmosphere. Dreamlike, gothic, intimate. Feels like walking into a watercolor.
“hidden glow-worms kindled and were spent”:
Sexual metaphor, obviously. Also suggests fleetingness, fragility of moments.
“Cheek pressed to cheek… mingled our hair, our breath”:
Merging of selves, bodies, souls. Erotic but also metaphysical.
“Spake in mine ear…”:
Suddenly old-school biblical/epic diction. The poem shifts into a prophecy vibe.
“THIS IS THE THING THAT IS”:
All-caps truth drop. This line punches like a stoned epiphany.
💀 POSSIBLE INTERPRETATIONS
1. Grief Dream
Speaker is dreaming of a dead lover. She appears, speaks comfort, and leaves him with a kiss. Melancholic and affirming.
2. Romantic Idealism
Love, even if it happens in dreams, transcends the shitshow of mortal life. It’s the realest real.
3. Mystical Revelation
The poem’s a mini-religious experience. The lover is a divine messenger telling the speaker: “Yo, what you felt was not illusion. This—this connection—is the truth.”
🧪 Final Notes
This thing is lush, lush, lush. Erotic without being crude, cosmic without being abstract. Feels like reading someone’s dream journal if that someone was deeply in love and lowkey haunted. The ending circles back to the kiss, making the whole experience loop. It’s intimate, mystical, and weirdly comforting.