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Remembering a quotation: dream of a dream

TalkaTalka Registered User regular
edited July 2009 in Help / Advice Forum
A few days ago I ran across some really beautiful quotation. I think it might have been some king reflecting on the blessed life he'd led, with his dying breathe remarking how his life has been a "dream of a dream." But I'm not good at remembering things. It might be a Frank Sinatra lyric instead. Or from some Japanese poem. Or maybe it wasn't a dream of a dream, but shadow of a shadow? Or a shadow of a dream?

Any help? Google was surprisingly useless.

Talka on

Posts

  • OrikaeshigitaeOrikaeshigitae Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited July 2009
    A Dream Within A Dream
    Edgar Allan Poe

    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?

    Orikaeshigitae on
  • HypatiaHypatia Registered User regular
    edited July 2009
    FROM 'LIFE IS A DREAM'

    by: Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600-1681)

    We live, while we see the sun,
    Where life and dreams are as one;
    And living has taught me this,
    Man dreams the life that is his,
    Until his living is done.
    The king dreams he is king, and he lives
    In the deceit of a king,
    Commanding and governing;
    And all the praise he receives
    Is written in wind, and leaves
    A little dust on the way
    When death ends all with a breath.
    Where then is the gain of the throne,
    That shall perish and not be known
    In the other dream that is death?
    Dreams the rich man of riches and fears,
    The fears that his riches breed;
    The poor man dreams of his need,
    And all his sorrows and tears;
    Dreams he that prospers with years,
    Dreams he that feigns and foregoes,
    Dreams he that rails on his foes;
    And in all the world, I see,
    Man dreams whatever he be,
    And his own dream no man knows.
    And I too dream and behold,
    I dream I am bound with chains,
    And I dreamed that these present pains
    Were fortunate ways of old.
    What is life? a tale that is told;
    What is life? a frenzy extreme,
    A shadow of things that seem;
    And the greatest good is but small,
    That all life is a dream to all,
    And that dreams themselves are a dream.

    Hypatia on
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