The Cry of the Dreamer

"The Boulevard Montmartre on a Winter Morning" by Camille Pissarro - Metropolitan Museum of Art, online database: entry 437310. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons.

The Cry of the Dreamer

by John Boyle O'Reilly

I am tired of planning and toiling

In the crowded hives of men;

Heart-weary of building and spoiling,

And spoiling and building again.

And I long for the dear old river,

Where I dreamed my youth away;

For a dreamer lives for ever,

And a toiler dies in a day.

I am sick of the showy seeming

Of a life that is half a lie;

Of the faces lined with scheming

In the throng that hurries by.

From the sleepless thoughts endeavor

I would go where the children play;

For a dreamer lives forever

And a thinker dies in a day.

I can feel no pride but pity

For the burdens the rich endure;

There is nothing sweet in the city

But the patient lives of the poor.

Oh, the little hands too skillful

And the child-mind chocked with weeds!

The daughter's heart grown willful,

And the father's heart that bleeds!

No, no! from the street's rude bustle,

From trophies of mart and stage,

I would fly to the woods' low rustle

And the meadows' kindly page.

Let me dream as of old by the river,

And be loved by the dream away;

For the dreamer lives for ever,

And a toiler dies in a day.

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