AS SEEN BY THE DREAMER.
Reading edition
While Champions of the Strenuous Life Are Fulfilling Their Destiny By Winning Fame and Fortune, Another Sort of Fellow Is Getting Just As Much Satisfaction By Contemplating Things That Don’t Exist.
THE CRY OF THE DREAMER.
By John Boyle O’Reilly.
I am tired of planning and tolling
In the crowded hives of men;
Heart-weary of building and spoiling.
And spoiling and building again.
And I long for the dear old river,
Where I dreamed my youth away;
For a dreamer lives forever,
And a toiler dies in a day.
I am sick of the showy seeming,
Of a life that is half a lie;
Of the faces lined with scheming
In the throng that hurries by
From the sleepless thoughts’ endeavor
I would go where the children play;
For a dreamer lives forever,
And a thinker dies in a day.
I can feel no pride, but pity
For the burdens the rich endure;
There is nothing sweet in the city
But the patient lives of the poor.
Oh, the little hands too skilful,
And the child-mind choked with weeds!
The daughter’s heart grown wilful,
And the father’s heart that bleeds!
No, no! from the street’s rude bustle,
From trophies of mart and stage,
I would fly to the woods’ low rustle
And the meadow’s kindly page.
Let me dream as of old by the river,
And be loved for the dream alway;
For a dreamer lives forever,
And a toiler dies in a day.
GIVE ME MY DREAMS.
By A. J. Waterhouse.
Give me my dreams. All else is naught,
At price of pain success is bought;
We struggle upward but to fall;
The prize we grasp but holds us thrall;
The lips that cheer us through the years
Some day smile not for all our tears;
We build awhile, we know not what,
And the toiler is forgot.
Give me my dreams.
Give me my dreams. A child am I
Who stands In darkness but to sigh,
Until a hand doth backward roll
The gray, damp mists about my soul,
And then—oh, dream of dreams that cheers—
They come, the loved of other years,
And voices whisper soft and low
The loving words of long ago.
Give me my dreams.
Give me my dreams. Oh, little maid,
With whom of old I laughed and played.
They say the ivy loves to creep
Above the grave where now you sleep;
They say the robin’s song no more
Can wake you as it did of yore.
What matter? Still In dreams you creep
Unto my side a tryst to keep.
Give me my dreams.
Give me my dreams. All else is dross.
But still I count it little loss,
For yet in dreams the bright stars burn
As in the years to which I turn;
White hands reach to me through the mist,
By lips I loved my lips are kissed;
And all life’s fields are love aglow.
As they were once, oh, long ago—
Give me my dreams.
Los Angeles Herald.
THE PORT O’ DREAMS.
It is just beyond the sky-line
With its poppy-fields of rest
Where day’s storm-bewildered shallop
Drops its anchor in the west,
Where a silent sea of saffron
Stretches inland toward the streams
That go glimmering down the valleys
Of the purple port o’ dreams.
In the far-off gloom behind it
Earth’s dusky bound’ry lies,
And a step beyond its outpost
The hills of heaven rise;
So near that in the glory
Of their mystic haze it seems
That the dear dead walk beside us
In the peaceful port o’ dreams.
Oh, strange and wondrous country.
Hiding close the goals of life,
Who wins to thee brings courage
For the long, dull march’s strife,
And the prisoner of living
Hope’s freedom pledge redeems
In thine endless, boundless radiance.
Oh, blissful port o’ dreams.
We have called thee Heart’s Desire,
Or the Island of the Blest,
And the Land of Finished Stories,
Oh, dreamland in the west.
Yet every heart’s the bound’ry
Of thy soul-reposing beams—
Art thou hope or love or heaven,
Oh, happy port o’ dreams?
Sail away, oh, weary-hearted,
To the bayous of release,
Leave the drums o’ life behind you
At the harbor bar of peace.
Come to anchor off the headlands
Where the light of heaven gleams
In the haven where ye would be
Past the purple port o’ dreams.
Army and Navy Journal.
THE DREAMER.
By Leon C. Prince.
Self-robbed victim, of will and purpose rid,
Slave of the beckoning fantom, oblivious
Of the talent lying hid;
Knowing a store of varied fact,
But not the art that transmutes
Aspiration into act;
Dreamer, thy vague and hopeless quest
Makes thee, of friends, the secret mock; of men of deed,
The tragic jest.
New York Sun.
WHEN THE CLOCK STRIKES SIX.
By McLandburgh Wilson.
I hold a modest clerkship this side the river Styx,
Also a cheap alarm-clock to waken me at six.
I dream I dwell in marble halls
Worth millions cool in cash;
Huge diamonds glitter on the walls
Where precious jewels flash;
A stranger wants to buy the place,
I take his offer up apace—
The
Clock
Strikes
Six!
I put ten dollars on a horse,
They say he cannot win;
Like lightning round the muddy course
I watch him swiftly spin.
A thousand if he keeps the pace!
Hurrah! My horse has won the race—
The
Clock
Strikes
Six!
The game is poker, and I hold
Three aces in my hand;
The jackpot, brimming full of gold,
Contains a fortune grand.
I draw a card with stolid face;
Behold, it is the other ace—
The
Clock
Strikes
Six!
A girl with eyes of heaven’s blue
Looks tenderly in mine.
The world seems made for just us two,
The pleasure is divine.
I hold her fast in my embrace,
I stoop to kiss her lovely face—
The
Clock
Strikes
Six!
Small wonder that when fortune plays me such scurvy tricks
I curse the cheap alarm-clock that wakens me at six.
New York Times.
HEART OF THE FIRE.
From the heart of the fire does the vision rise,
It is good to sit in the afterglow,
While some one’s hand in your big one lies
And nobody there to know,
Ah, golden gleaming its many towers,
The palace ye build, ye twain.
Where two shall dwell thro’ the love-lit hours
In a golden castle in Spain.
Who is it laughs in the dusk behind?
Who lurks in the shadows there?
Will the years that are coming to you be kind
And the end of the dream be fair?
Ah! boy and girl, with the love-lit eyes!
Will the faith and the love remain
When only a crumbling ruin lies—
Your fallen castle in Spain?
Sydney Bulletin.