Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace.

These opening lines come from Leigh Hunt’s short narrative poem “Abou Ben Adhem,” first published in the early nineteenth century. Hunt (1784–1859), a prominent English essayist and poet associated with the Romantic circle, frames the poem as a moral tale set in an imagined Islamic milieu. The parenthetical blessing “may his tribe increase!” echoes a traditional-sounding benediction, lending the story a folkloric, devotional tone. The poem begins with Abou Ben Adhem waking from a serene dream, which sets up the ensuing vision: a radiant angel recording names in a “book of gold,” a device Hunt uses to explore the relationship between piety, love, and salvation.

The couplet establishes Abou’s spiritual disposition before any action occurs: he wakes from “a deep dream of peace,” suggesting inner harmony rather than anxious striving for reward. The blessing in parentheses immediately marks him as worthy of goodwill, and it also signals that the poem will treat virtue as something recognized in ordinary human life. Hunt uses this calm opening to contrast with the later revelation that Abou is not listed among those who “love the Lord,” yet is ultimately honored for loving his fellow humans. The lines thus introduce a central Romantic-era ethical emphasis: genuine benevolence and human sympathy can be a truer measure of holiness than formal religious profession.