Hold fast to dreams 

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams

For when dreams go

Life is a barren field

Frozen with snow.

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow:
You are not wrong who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand--
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep--while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

     the eye of  God is planted between  my brow the eye of God is
      opening  at the top of  my head the  eye of God was made with
      blood, was made from the hands of an ungodly master the eye
      of God pierced my head in two  the eye of God said look and I
      saw  it the eye of God showed me  rivers and fields  and trees
      that  would  shelter me  on  my  way  the  eye of God told me I
      would  not  be enslaved  the  eye  of  God  showed  me all the
      shades of my humanity showed me how to see my people my
      people  my  people are the eye of God, too my  people  bloom 
      from my brow my people are the top of my head and the soles
      of  my feet  my  people  are made  with  blood  my people  are
      hurting  at  the  hands  of an  ungodly  master  my people have 
      pierced  me  in  two  my  people said look  and I  saw them my
      people  showed me their blood in the rivers my people showed
      me their blood in the fields my people showed me their bodies
      in  the trees and  the shelter I could  make for them on my way
      my people  told  me they were not enslaved my people showed
      me all the shades of my  humanity my  people showed me how
      to  see  my people how to see my God my God and  my people 
      are made of the same cloth the  same blood my people showed
      up  in my  vision  and  I said  oh God show me how  to  make  a
      way—

What does he plant who plants a tree?
   He plants a friend of sun and sky;
He plants the flag of breezes free;
   The shaft of beauty, towering high;
   He plants a home to heaven anigh;
      For song and mother-croon of bird
      In hushed and happy twilight heard—
The treble of heaven's harmony—
These things he plants who plants a tree.

What does he plant who plants a tree?
   He plants cool shade and tender rain,
And seed and bud of days to be,
   And years that fade and flush again;
      He plants the glory of the plain;
      He plants the forest's heritage;
      The harvest of a coming age;
The joy that unborn eyes shall see—
These things he plants who plants a tree.

What does he plant who plants a tree?
   He plants, in sap and leaf and wood,
In love of home and loyalty
   And far-cast thought of civic good—
   His blessings on the neighborhood,
      Who in the hollow of His hand
      Holds all the growth of all our land—
A nation's growth from sea to sea
Stirs in his heart who plants a tree.

^{translated from the Spanish by Ida Farnell}

Hail to thee Sun! Oh, list and stay thy course!
To thee in ecstasy I make my prayer,
The while my soul, aglow with fire like thine,
Uplifts her wings and boldly cleaves the air,
To pay her tribute to thy power divine.
Oh, that this voice of mine in wondrous wise,
Rending the clouds asunder.
To thee, great Sun, might rise,
Drowning with words sublime the dreaded thunder,
And, in the heavens’ blue vault,
Bidding thee in thy mighty journey halt!

Oh, that the inner flame which lights the mind
Would lend its virtue to my feeble sight,
So that no longer with thy beams made blind
Mine eager eyes I might undazzled raise.
And on thy radiant face, divinely bright,
Might even dare to rest my constant gaze!
How I have ever loved thee, glorious Sun!
A child, with wondering eyes.
My life but just begun,
How oft I longed to reach thee in the skies;
And on what rapture fed
As thy great chariot on its pathway sped!

From where the Orient rears his golden crest,
Whose borders Ocean girds with many a pearl,
E’en to the limits of the shadowy West
The dazzling hem of thy bright garment gleams,
And thou thy shining banner dost unfurl.
And bathest all the world in thy pure streams.
From thy broad brow the light of day thou sendest,
Great source of life and seat,
And of thy calm, majestic disk thou lendest
The fertilizing heat,
Amid the spheres on high
Rising triumphant in the azure sky.

Calmly thou scal’st the Zenith’s golden height,
In Heaven’s high hall enthroned supreme thou reignest,
And there with living flames and splendour dight,
Thy fiery steeds thou reinest.
From thence full speedily thy way thou takest,
Till down the steep incline
Thy rich and trailing locks of gold thou shakest
On Ocean’s heaving, tremulous floor of brine;
Then in deep, watery bowers
Thy glory dies away,
And one more day Eternity devours.

What ages, Sun, what ages hast thou seen,
Thus swallowed by the gulf no plummet measures,
What mighty nations, what imperial pride,
What pomp and splendour, and what heaped up treasures!
’Fore thee, what were they? Leaves blown far and wide
From the great forest—withered, light and sear,
Eddying, all tempest-tossed,
Till the blast drove them hence, and they were lost.

And thou, alone from wrath divine exempt,
Hast seen submerged all the sinful world,
When driving rains were by Jehovah poured
On man and beast; the pent up winds were hurled
O’er heaving seas, and loud the billows roared;
From rifted cloud the deafening thunder pealed
In dreadful menace; and in anguished throes
The Earth upon her diamond axle swayed;
O’er hill and plain uprose
One huge, tumultuous sea—a watery grave.
Trembled the mighty deep,
While thou, our lord, as one awake from sleep,
Above the stormy waste didst build thy throne.
Robed in funereal black,
With face that darkly gleams,
Till on new worlds thou sendest healing beams.

And wilt thou ever see
The ages rise and fall, and yield their place
In never-ending change like restless waves,
That, hurrying o’er the Ocean, crowd and break,
Recede, then sweep along in their fierce chase?
Whilst thou, O Sun, triumphant and sublime,
In lonely splendour dwellst,
Eternal witness of the march of time.

And wilt thou unextinguished thus abide,
And will thy giant furnace burn for aye,
Its fierceness unconsumed? Wilt thou, O’ Sun,
Thus proudly through the heavens go thy way,
Watching the myriad ages wax and wane,
And be alone eternally unmoved,
Holding for ever undisputed reign?
Not so—The Conqueror, Death,
Albeit in hour unknown,
Will overtake and claim thee for his own.
Perchance, who knows? Thou art but some poor spark
Of sun more vast, that on another world
Greater than ours, with light yet more divine,
And splendour unimagined once did shine!

Rejoice then, Sun, in this thy strength and youth.
For, when the dreaded day draws nigh at last,
The day when thou from thy great throne wilt fall,
(Loosed from the mighty hands
Of Him that all commands,)
And in eternity shalt hide thy Ball,
In thousand fragments shattered, wrecked and torn.
Immersed in seas of fire,
Thy course accomplished, and thy strength outworn,
Then thy pure flame in darkness, of a truth,
Will wholly cease, thy glory be o’erpast,
Shrouded for ever by the pall of night,
No vestige left of thy refulgent light.

Al Sol: Himno

Pára y óyeme, ¡ oh Sol! yo te saludo
Y extático ante ti me atrevo a hablarte:
Ardiente como tú mi fantasía,
Arrebatada en ansia de admirarte,
Intrépidas a ti sus alas guía.
¡Ojalá que mi acento poderoso,
Sublime resonado,
Del trueno pavoroso
La temerosa voz sobrepujando,
¡Oh Sol! a ti llegara
Y en medio de tu curso te parara!
¡Ah! si la llama que mi mente alumbra,
Diera también su ardor a mis sentidos,
Al rayo vencedor que los deslumbra,
Los anhelantes ojos alzaría,
Y en tu semblante fúlgido atrevidos
Mirando sin cesar los fijaría.
¡Cuánto siempre te amé, Sol refulgente!
¡Con qué sencillo anhelo,
Siendo niño inocente,
Seguirte ansiaba en el tendido cielo,
Y extático te vía
Y en contemplar tu luz me embebecía!
De los dorados límites de Oriente,
Que ciñe el rico en perlas Océano,
Al término sombroso de Occidente
Las orlas de tu ardiente vestidura
Tiendes en pompa, augusto soberano,
Y el mundo bañas en tu lumbre pura.
Vívido lanzas de tu frente el día,
Y, alma y vida del mundo,
Tu disco en paz majestuoso envía
Plácido ardor fecundo,
Y te elevas triunfante,
Corona de los orbes centellantes.
Tranquilo subes del Cenit dorado
Al regio trono en la mitad del cielo,
De vivas llamas y esplendor ornado,
Y desde allí tu fúlgida carrera
Rápido precipitas,
Y tu rica, encendida cabellera
En el seno del mar trémula agitas,
Y tu esplendor se oculta,
Y el ya pasado día
Con otros mil la eternidad sepulta.
¡Cuántos siglos sin fin, cuántos has visto
En su abismo insondable desplomarse!
¡Cuánta pompa, grandeza y poderío
De imperios populosos disiparse!
¿Qué fueron ante ti? Del bosque umbrío
Secas y leves hojas desprendidas,
Que en círculos se mecen,
Y al furor de Aquilón desaparecen.
Libre tú de la cólera divina,
Viste anegarse el universo entero
Cuando las aguas por Jehová lanzadas,
Impelidas del brazo justiciero,
Y a mares por los vientos despeñadas,
Bramó la tempestad: retumbó en torno
El ronco trueno y con temblor crujieron
Los ejes de diamante de la tierra:
Montes y campos fueron
Alborotado mar, tumba del hombre.
Se estremeció el profund;
Y entonces tú como Señor del mundo
Sobre la tempestad tu trono alzabas,
Vestido de tinieblas,
Y tu faz engreías
Y a otros mundos en paz resplandecías.
Y otra vez nuevos siglos
Viste llegar, huir, desvanecerse
En remolino eterno, cual las olas
Llegan, se agolpan y huyen de Océano,
Y tornan otra vez a sucederse;
Mientra inmutable tú, solo y radiante
¡Oh Sol! siempre te elevas,
Y edades mil y mil huellas triunfantes.
¿Y habrás de ser eterno, inextinguible,
Sin que nunca jamás tu inmensa hoguera
Pierda su resplandor, siempre incansable,
Audaz siguiendo tu inmortal carrera,
Hundirse las edades contemplando,
Y solo, eterno, perenal, sublime,
Monarca poderoso dominando?
No; que también la muerte
Si de lejos te sigue,
No menos anhelante te persigue.
¿Quién sabe si tal vez pobre destello?
Eres tú de otro sol que otro universo
Mayor que el nuestro un día
Con doble resplandor esclarecía.
Goza tu juventud y tu hermosura
¡Oh Sol! que cuando el pavoroso día
Llegue que el orbe estalle y se desprenda
De la potente mano
Del Padre Soberano,
Y allá a la eternidad también descienda
Deshecho en mil pedazos, destrozado
Y en piélagos de fuego
Envuelto para siempre y sepultado:
De cien tormentas al horrible estruendo,
En tinieblas sin fin tu llama pura
Entonces morirá: noche sombría
Cubrirá eterna la celeste cumbre:
Ni aun quedará reliquia de tu lumbre!

Rich raptures, you say, our dreams assume,

Slaking the heart’s immortal thirst?

Only the old we reillume;

But think—to have dreamed the flowers first!

Think,—to have dreamed the first blue sea;

Imaged every illustrious hue

Of the earliest sunset’s tapestry;

And the snow,—and the birds, when their songs were new!

Think,—from the blue of highest heaven

To have sown all the stars, to have whispered “Light!”—

Hung a moon in a prismy even,

Spun a world on its splendid flight!

To have first conceived of boundless Space;

To have thought so small as to garb the trees;

All planet years in your mind’s embrace,—

And the midge’s life, for all of these!

And Man still boasts of his brain’s weak best

In dream or invention; from first to last

Blunders ’mid wonders barely guessed.

And fondly believes that his thoughts are “vast”!

On cloudy Sundays clouds are in my heart
as if my brother came, as if the rain
lingered among the mushrooms and the art
of freedom washed into the murder train
or rinsed the peat bog soldiers of the camp.¹
On cloudy Sundays clouds are with Joe Hill.
Last night I dreamt he was alive. The tramp
was mining clouds for thunder. And uphill
into the clouds I feel that time descends,
as if my mother came, as if the moon
were flowering between the thighs of friends
and gave us fire. On Sundays when the swan
of death circles my heart, the cloudy noon
rolls me gaping like dice, though I am gone. 

^{1. The peat bog soldiers were prisoners of war in the Börgerniir Nazi concentration camp in Lower Saxony. The song was composed in German by inmates and sung by thousands of inmates as they marched with their digging spades instead of rifles. It became a resistance song in many languages during World War II. In his resonant voice Paul Robeson famously sang it both in German and English.}

^{Wir sind die Moorsoldaten
und ziehen mit dem Spaten ins Moor.
Wir sind die Moorsoldaten
und ziehen mit dem Spaten ins Moor.}

^{We are the peat bog soldiers,
Marching with our spades to the moor.
We are the peat bog soldiers,
Marching with our spades to the moor.}

If every bomb 
Appeared in the sky a dove
Shrapnel into rain

If vengeance vanquished 
From the cursed lips of weak men
An idea never taking root

If every tank vanished
If by chance a miracle
Peace reclaims the land

If laughter broke out
Like wars fought with satire’s
Pugilist punning 

What room would there be
For anger what bitter root
Not allowed to stretch

Its tentacles 
Through the hearts of men hardened
By indifference 

What will we bequeath 
Our children if not a world
Evermore human

I’m folding up my little dreams
Within my heart tonight,
And praying I may soon forget
The torture of their sight.

For Time’s deft fingers scroll my brow
With fell relentless art—
I’m folding up my little dreams
Tonight, within my heart!

^{Sestine Enchainée}

When autumn cloudlets fleck the sky
    Straying southward like birds o’er the sea,
      When the flickering sunlight on the dunes
          Is pale, as seagrasses kissed by the spray,
           Seagrasses that knew the summer of yesterday–
             Sweet are the dreams on the breeze-blown strand!

Sweet are the dreams on the breeze-blown strand!
   When cloud skiffs skim athwart the sky
       And like a phantom of yesterday
          The light house shimmers out to sea
             Pale as the sand and the sea-worn spray
               And the straggling sunlight on the dunes.

Like straggling sunlight on the dunes,
  Like opal surges that wash the strand
    With briny fragrance, adoom with the spray,
        Like wander-birds that career the sky
          To flowerlit isles of some Southern sea-
            Such are the dreams of yesterday!

Alas, our dreams of yesterday,
   Frail as the fragrance of the dunes,
     Vain as dark jewels of the sea
        Cast up on some glimmering strand,
          They vanish like cloud sails on the sky,
             Pale as seagrasses frowsed by the spray.  

Pale as seagrasses kissed by the spray,
   Is all this life of yesterday,
    All our longings for clear blue skies
       For the low cool plash on autumn dunes,
          All our musings on tide-left strands
             While birds wing southward o’er the sea.

Like birds winging southward o’er the sea
   Scattered in air-like wasteful spray,
     Sea-fancies fading on lonesome strands
       Weary of storm drifts of yesterday,
           Thus our thoughts on the sea-scooped dunes
              When autumn cloudlets fleck the sky.

Oh, autumn-sea under a cloud-flecked sky
   As caressed are thy dunes with opal spray
      So shimmer in dreams on the breeze-blown strand
         Sweet long-lost summers of yesterday.