What if you slept And what if In your sleep You dreamed And what if In your dream You went to heaven And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower And what if When you awoke You had that flower in you hand Ah, what then?

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
About This Quote

This poem is a beautiful metaphor for what happens when we die. The narrator wakes up with a beautiful flower in his hand, but he doesn’t know what it is or where it came from. In fact, he doesn’t remember anything about his dream. He begins looking around the room to see if there are any clues to where the flower came from, but he can’t remember what he was doing during the day.

So, he asks a friend what they were doing that day and she remembers they were going to a party. So, he asks her to go back and find out where the party took place and they will figure out the rest at the party. He goes to his bedroom and looks at all of his objects on his nightstand and decides to wait for something to happen.

In the meantime, the narrator begins thinking about why he is holding this flower in his hand as he has no idea who gave it to him. He remembers someone telling him that there was a time when he had known everything there was to know about life, but now he doesn’t know anything at all and wonders how long it will be before someone can help him find out what happened and why he is holding this mysterious flower.

Source: The Complete Poems

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More Quotes By Samuel Taylor Coleridge
  1. Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.
  2. Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind.
  3. No man was ever yet a great poet, without at the same time being a profound philosopher.
  4. Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.
  5. Silence does not always mark wisdom.
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