Everytime you see a tree
or dream a cloud,
there is that in you of the tree
there is that in you of the cloud.
The saguaro dreams in drought
and endures. The cloud dreams
our woe –sneezes, cries.
The rain falls
Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high
There’s a land that I heard of
Once in a lullaby
Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true
Some day I’ll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where troubles melt like lemondrops
Away above the chimney tops
That’s where you’ll find me
Somewhere over the rainbow
Bluebirds fly
Birds fly over the rainbow
Why then, oh why can’t I?
Some day I’ll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where troubles melt like lemondrops
Away above the chimney tops
That’s where you’ll find me
Somewhere over the rainbow
Bluebirds fly
Birds fly over the rainbow
Why then, oh why can’t I?
If happy little bluebirds fly
Beyond the rainbow
Why, oh why can’t I?
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with wornout tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run –
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!
Before I dream may I hope for You.
Before I long may I reach for You.
Before I judge may I listen to You.
Before I rush may I rest with You.
Before I shout may I call on You.
Before I doubt may I hear from You.
Before I brag may I point to You.
Before I fear may I trust in You.
Before I act may I remember You . . .
So that in these things, in all I do,
It is not I that am first, but always You.
Susan Dane
Men dream the day
they find the woman on a horse,
hair in the wind,
cantering.
Unmeasured ecstasy.
A magazine dream.
Deep down,
they fear the affluence
and speed;
One day she will discover
the shallow well,
the short night,
how small their manhood really is.
So after a time they pull back,
feign fatigue,
tuck in limp to sleep,
remind her of her helplessness.
Your body becomes
a clay drenched field,
muddy veins, skin gray.
Joined in holy union
to your privation,
slogging, slow, alone,
you pull the horse on foot,
by his lead.
WITH stammering lips and insufficient sound
I strive and struggle to deliver right
That music of my nature, day and night
With dream and thought and feeling interwound
And inly answering all the senses round
With octaves of a mystic depth and height
Which step out grandly to the infinite
From the dark edges of the sensual ground.
This song of soul I struggle to outbear
Through portals of the sense, sublime and whole,
And utter all myself into the air:
But if I did it,–as the thunder-roll
Breaks its own cloud, my flesh would perish there,
Before that dread apocalypse of soul.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning