{
 "id": "john-newton/on-dreaming",
 "title": "On Dreaming",
 "ordinal": "98",
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "John Newton",
 "poet_slug": "john-newton",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Olney Hymns",
 "book_slug": "olney-hymns",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 239,
 "container": "IV Creation",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1779,
  "venue": "Olney Hymns (1779)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_olney-hymns-in-three-bo_newton-john_1779",
   "https://cowperandnewtonmuseum.org.uk/bulletin/computerised-index-to-the-olney-hymns/",
   "https://archive.org/details/olneyhymnsinthre00cowpuoft"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/john-newton_william-cowper_olney-hymns",
  "file": "book-2.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Olney_Hymns_%281840%29",
   "https://archive.org/details/olneyhymnsinthre00cowpuoft"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-15"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 32,
  "n_stanzas": 8,
  "n_parts": 8,
  "longest_line_chars": 44,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [
  {
   "ordinal": "I",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    0,
    1
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "II",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    1,
    2
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "III",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    2,
    3
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "IV",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    3,
    4
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "V",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
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   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "VI",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    5,
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   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "VII",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    6,
    7
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "VIII",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    7,
    8
   ]
  }
 ],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "When slumber seals our weary eyes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The busy fancy wakeful keeps;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The scenes which then before us rise",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Prove something in us never sleeps.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "As in another world we seem,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A new creation of our own;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All appears real, though but a dream,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And all familiar, though unknown.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Sometimes, the mind beholds again",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The past day’s business in review⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Resumes the pleasure or the pain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sometimes all we meet is new.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "What schemes we form, what pains we take!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We fight, we run, we fly, we fall;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But all is ended when we wake,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We scarcely then a trace recall.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But though our dreams are often wild,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like clouds before the driving storm;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet some important may be styled,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sent to admonish or inform.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "What mighty agents have access,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What friends from heaven, or foes from hell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our minds to comfort or distress,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When we are sleeping, who can tell?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "One thing, at least, and ’tis enough,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We learn from this surprising fact⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our dreams afford sufficient proof,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The soul without the flesh can act.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "This life, which mortals so esteem,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That many choose it for their all,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They will confess, was but a dream,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When waken’d by death’s awful call.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}