Reality and Dreams
In normal lives realities and dreams are mixed
And, through their interactions, memories are fixed.
Most happiness is transient and brief;
Troubles both follow and precede relief
As selfish interest so rarely yields
Other hearts’ yearnings or other minds’ needs.
Dreams may seem fragile eggshells, lying spurned
In crowded farmyards’ trampling unconcerns,
But over life’s worst hazards they prevail
Since, whilst dreams last, fresh triumphs cannot fail.
Reality demands of us incessant toil
Although that labour may its profits spoil
As stark experience of death, pain, strife
Asks sombre questions of the point of life.
Dreams are our minds’ creative factories
Renewing hopes, (crushed by harsh miseries),
Through inspirations that bring fresh reward
By solving problems, not their disregard!.
Our efforts to supply essential food,
Or meet the mortgage, undermine work’s good
As relatives, or hangers-on, each vie
To gain the proceeds of our industry.
Dreams free us from the tyrannies of facts
And help us to progress as we relax;
Turning disasters into victories
By shewing us some better strategies.
Success at work is not enough to pay
The bills or appetites incurred thereby:
Trouble and loss and insufficiency
Result from blind materiality.
Through dreams we overcome despair and pain
And, in their comforts, we revive again.
For people are not all they outward seem
And can learn subtle secrets as they dream.
Life is not just reality’s hard facts and grind:
It owns great mysteries that can enrich the mind.
