Robert Service (1874-1958)

Dreams Are Best

(Fragment)

I just think that dreams are best,
   Just to sit and fancy things;
   Give your gold no acid test,
Try not how your silver rings;
Fancy women pure and good,
   Fancy men upright and true:
   Fortressed in your solitude,
Let Life be a dream to you.

For I think that Truth is all,
   Truth’s a minion of the mind;
   Love’s ideal comes at call;
As ye seek so shall ye find.
But ye must not seek too far;
   Things are never what they seem:
   Let a star be just a star,
And a woman – just a dream.

O you Dreamers proud and pure,
   You have gleaned the sweet of life!
   Golden truth that shall endure
Over pain and doubt and strife.
   I would rather be a fool
      Living in my Paradise,
      Than a leader of a school,
Sadly sane and weary wise.

Yes, I’ll smoke my cigarette,
   Vestured in my garb of dreams,
   And I’ll borrow no regret;
All is gold that golden gleams.
So I’ll charm my solitude
   With the faith that Life is blest,
   Brave and noble, bright and good....
   Oh, I think that dreams are best!

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

Sonnet Xvii

My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes
God set between his After and Before,
And strike up and strike off the general roar
Of the rushing worlds a melody that floats
In a serene air purely. Antidotes
Of medicated music, answering for
Mankind's forlornest uses, thou canst pour
From thence into their ears. God's will devotes
Thine to such ends, and mine to wait on thine.
How, Dearest, wilt thou have me for most use ?
A hope, to sing by gladly ? or a fine
Sad memory, with thy songs to interfuse ?
A shade, in which to sing--of palm or pine ?
A grave, on which to rest from singing ? Choose.

 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning :

Peter Gabriel - Red Rain (HD)

Peter Gabriel

"Red Rain"

red rain is coming down
red rain
red rain is pouring down
pouring down all over me

I am standing up at the water's edge in my dream
I cannot make a single sound as you scream
it can't be that cold, the ground is still warm to touch
this place is so quiet, sensing that storm

red rain is coming down
red rain
red rain is pouring down
pouring down all over me

well I've seen them buried in a sheltered place in this town
they tell you that this rain can sting, and look down
there is no blood around see no sign of pain
hay ay ay no pain
seeing no red at all, see no rain

red rain is coming down
red rain
red rain is pouring down
pouring down all over me

red rain
putting the pressure on much harder now
to return again and again
just let the red rain splash you
let the rain fall on your skin
I come to you defences down
with the trust of a child

red rain is coming down
red rain
red rain is pouring down
pouring down all over me
and I can't watch any more
no more denial
it's so hard to lay down in all of this
red rain is coming down
red rain is pouring down
red rain is coming down all over me
I see it
red rain is coming down
red rain is pouring down
red rain is coming down all over me
I'm bathing in it
red rain coming down
red rain is coming down
red rain is coming down all over me
I'm begging you
red rain coming down
red rain coming down
red rain coming down
red rain coming down
over me in the red red sea
over me
over me
red rain

Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867)

THE GIANTESS
by: Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867)

should have loved—erewhile when Heaven conceived

Each day, some child abnormal and obscene,

Beside a maiden giantess to have lived,

Like a luxurious cat at the feet of a queen;




To see her body flowering with her soul,

And grow, unchained, in awe-inspiring art,

Within the mists across her eyes that stole

To divine the fires entombed within her heart.




And oft to scramble o'er her mighty limbs,

And climb the slopes of her enormous knees,

Or in summer when the scorching sunlight streams




Across the country, to recline at ease,

And slumber in the shadow of her breast

Like an hamlet 'neath the mountain-crest.

Octavio Paz (1914-1998)

The Bridge

Between now and now,
between I am and you are,
the word bridge.

Entering it
you enter yourself:
the world connects
and closes like a ring.

From one bank to another,
there is always
a body stretched:
a rainbow.
I'll sleep beneath its arches.

 

Octavio Paz :

Xavier Lillavrrutia (1903-1950)

Prisoner Nocturne

Prisoner of my head
dream desires to escape
and outside of me to prove
to all that it is innocent.
I hear its impatient voice,
I see its gesture and its condition
menacing and furious.
It is not known that I am the dream
of another: if I were its master
I would already have set it free.  

Leonard Cohen

"Bird On The Wire"

Like a bird on the wire,
like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free.
Like a worm on a hook,
like a knight from some old fashioned book
I have saved all my ribbons for thee.
If I, if I have been unkind,
I hope that you can just let it go by.
If I, if I have been untrue
I hope you know it was never to you.
Like a baby, stillborn,
like a beast with his horn
I have torn everyone who reached out for me.
But I swear by this song
and by all that I have done wrong
I will make it all up to thee.
I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch,
he said to me, "You must not ask for so much."
And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door,
she cried to me, "Hey, why not ask for more?"

Oh like a bird on the wire,
like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free.

The Neville Brothers - Bird On A Wire

Cat Stevens

"Morning Has Broken"

Morning has broken, like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for the springing fresh from the world

Sweet the rain's new fall, sunlit from heaven
Like the first dewfall, on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where his feet pass

Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning
Born of the one light, Eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise every morning
God's re-creation of the new day

Tom Waits (Austin 1978) [02]. Summertime / Burma Shave

Tom Waits

"Burma Shave"

licorice tattoo turned a gun metal blue scrawled across the shoulders
of a dying town the one eyed jacks across the railroad tracks
and the scar on its belly pulled a stranger passing through
he was a juvenile delinquent never learned how to behave
but the cops would never think to look in
burma shave

and the road was like a ribbon and the moon was like a bone
he didn't seem to be like any guy she'd ever known
he kinda looked like farley granger with his hair slicked back
she says i'm a sucker for a fella in a cowboy hat
how far are you going he said depends on what you mean
he says i'm going thataway just as long as it's paved
i guess you'd say i'm on my way to
burma shave

and her knees up on the glove compartment
took out her barrettes and her hair spilled out like rootbeer
and she popped her gum and arched her back
hell marysville ain't nothing but a wide spot in the road
some night my heart pounds just like thunder
i don't know why it don't explode
cause everyone in this stinking town has got one foot in the grave
and i'd rather take my chances out in
burma shave

presley's what i go by why don't you change the station
count the grain elevators in the rearview mirror
mister anywhere you point this thing
has got to beat the hell out of the sting
of going to bed with every dream that dies here every mornin
and so drill me a hole with a barber pole
i'm jumping my parole just like a fugitive tonight
why don't you have another swig
and pass that car if you're so brave
i wanna get there before the sun comes up in
burma shave

and the spider web crack and the mustang screamed
smoke from the tires and the twisted machine
just a nickel's worth of dreams and every wishbone that they saved
lie swindled from them on the way to
burma shave

and the sun hit the derrick and cast a bat wing shadow
up against the car door on the shot gun side
and when they pulled her from the wreck you know she
still had on her shades
they say that dreams are growing wild just this side of
burma shave