squiggly
- 3,277
- 263
Whenever I'm down on humanity or whenever I wonder if a movement has the strength to continue on (or whether its dreams of progress will ever come to fruition)--I think of one of my favorite poets of all time: Arthur O'Shaughnessy.
As today we all celebrate our varying levels of freedom to smoke, or lament that we must do it indoors for fear of governmental rebuttal--I am encouraged as I ever have been. Even while I cannot partake on this day I can feel with each breath the world takes it waddles ever closer to a day where we can all choose what goes into our bodies. In Illinois, my Alma Mater--if you will--a bill for a 'pilot' medical marijuana program has recently cleared the house. It's a fairly restrictive program, but a program nonetheless.
On to the poem which fills my spirit on days when it nears emptiness, and give me hope for our species when I've nearly none left. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do:
WE are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample an empire down.
We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.
As today we all celebrate our varying levels of freedom to smoke, or lament that we must do it indoors for fear of governmental rebuttal--I am encouraged as I ever have been. Even while I cannot partake on this day I can feel with each breath the world takes it waddles ever closer to a day where we can all choose what goes into our bodies. In Illinois, my Alma Mater--if you will--a bill for a 'pilot' medical marijuana program has recently cleared the house. It's a fairly restrictive program, but a program nonetheless.
On to the poem which fills my spirit on days when it nears emptiness, and give me hope for our species when I've nearly none left. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do:
WE are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample an empire down.
We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.
