HOLD FAST TO YOUR DREAMS - Louis Driscoll, Old Poetry

Hold fast your dreams!
Within your heart
Keep one still, secret spot
Where dreams may go,
And, sheltered so,
May thrive and grow
Where doubt and fear are not.
O keep a place apart,
Within your heart,
For little dreams to go!

Think still of lovely things that are not true.
Let wish and magic work at will in you.
Be sometimes blind to sorrow. Make believe!
Forget the calm that lies
In disillusioned eyes.
Though we all know that we must die,
Yet you and I
May walk like gods and be
Even now at home in immortality.

We see so many ugly things—
Deceits and wrongs and quarrelings;
We know, alas we know
How quickly fade
The color in the west,
The bloom upon the flower,
The bloom upon the breast
And youth's blind hour.
Yet keep within your heart
A place apart
Where little dreams may go,
May thrive and grow.
Hold fast—hold fast your dreams!

-Louis Driscoll (read it in High School)

CHARACTER

"Not all who seem to fail, have failed indeed;
Not all who fail have therefore worked in vain:
For all our acts to many issues lead;
And out of earnest purpose, pure and plain,
Enforced by honest toil of hand or brain,
The Lord will fashion, in His own good time,
(Be this the labourer's proudly humble creed.)
Such ends as, to His wisdom, fitliest chime.
With His vast love's eternal harmonies
There is no failure for the good and wise;
What though thy seed should fall by the wayside
And the birds Snatch it; yet the birds are fed;
Or they may bear it far across the tide,
To give rich harvests after thou art dead."*

*Politics for the People,1848
From CHARACTER-The Discipline of Experience
-SAMUEL SMILES

Said a sheet of snow-white paper

Said a sheet of snow-white paper, "Pure was I created, and pure will I remain for ever. I would rather be burnt and turn to white ashes than suffer darkness to touch me or the unclean to come near me."

The ink-bottle heard what the paper was saying, and it laughed in its dark heart; but it never dared to approach her. And the multicoloured pencils heard her also, and they too never came near her.

And the snow-white sheet of paper did remain pure and chaste for ever -- pure and chaste -- and empty.


From THE FORERUNNER by Kahlil Gibran

The Lotus and the Bee

Princess, once upon a time a young and handsome bee, that had till then grown up at home and been fed by his parents, set out for the first time in his life on an expedition to fetch flower-nectar for the purpose of making honey. And attracted by its fragrance he flew to a red lotus, growing on a pool in the forest, and was about to drain her of her sweetness. But the lotus closed her flower, and would not let him enter, saying: O bee, you come here after the manner of your kind, insolently pushing into me, and seeking to rob me of my nectar, expecting to get all for nothing. Learn that you must buy my nectar of me. Then the bee buzzed and said: What shall I give you for it? What is there that you can want? Is it not enough for you to blow and bloom on this pool, scenting the air? Then the lotus said: There is still something wanting. Out upon you, foolish bee; You, a bee, not to know what I want! Go away, and find out, and then come back to me, if you want any of my nectar.

Then the bee buzzed violently in anger, and flew away, to find out what the lotus wanted. And he saw a beetle busily grubbing in the earth at the foot of a tree. So he said: O beetle, tell me what the lotus wants. But the beetle answered: What is a lotus to me? Go elsewhere; I have no leisure. So the bee flew off and saw a spider, spinning a web in a branch. And he asked him. And the spider said: What she wants is doubtless a fly. But the bee thought: It cannot be a fly. This spider judges others by himself. And seeing a cloud floating in the air above him, he flew up and asked it: O cloud, what does the lotus want? The cloud said: Raindrops. So the bee flew back and offered water to the lotus. But she said: I get that from the cloud and from the pool, not from you. Try again. So he flew away and saw a sunbeam playing on a blade of grass, and asked it what the lotus wanted. The sunbeam said: Warmth. So the bee flew back bringing with him a fire-fly, and tried to warm the lotus. But she said: I get warmth from the sun, not from you. Try again. Then the bee flew off again, and saw an owl blinking in a tree; and he buzzed in his ear and roused him, and said: O owl, tell me what the lotus wants. The owl said: Sleep. And the bee flew back, and said to the lotus: I will lull you to sleep by humming to you, and fanning you with my wings. But the lotus answered: I get sleep from the night, not from you . Try again.

Then the bee in despair flew away, crying aloud: What in the world can this niggardly and capricious lotus want of me? And as fate would have it, his cry was overheard by an old hermit, who lived in the forest, and knew the language of all beasts and birds. And he called to the bee, and said: O thou dull-witted bee, this is what the lotus wants: and he told him. Then the bee was delighted, and flew away to the lotus, and gave her what she wanted. And she opened her flower, and he went in and stole her nectar.

Now tell me, Princess, what did the bee give the lotus? And the Princess blushed, and said: He gave her a kiss.

From The Sanskrit. Edited by Ruskin Bond

Realisation in Love

One day I was out in a boat on the Ganges. It was a beautiful evening in autumn. The sun had just set; the silence of the sky was full to the brim with ineffable peace and beauty. The vast expanse of water was without a ripple, mirroring all the changing shades of the sunset glow. Miles and miles of a desolate sandbank lay like
a huge amphibious reptile of some antediluvian age, with its scales glistening in shining colours. As our boat was silently gliding by the precipitous river-bank, riddled with the nest-holes of a colony of birds, suddenly a big fish leapt up to the surface of the water and then disappeared, displaying on its vanishing figure all the colours of the evening sky. It drew aside for a moment the many-coloured screen behind which there was a silent world full of the joy of life. It came up from the depths of its mysterious dwelling with a beautiful dancing motion and added its own music to the silent symphony of the dying day. I felt as if I had a friendly greeting from an alien world in its own language, and it touched my heart with a flash of gladness. Then suddenly the man at the helm exclaimed with a distinct note of regret, "Ah, what a big fish!" It at once brought before his vision the picture of the fish caught and made ready for his supper. He could only look at the fish through his desire, and thus missed the whole truth of its existence.



This is an ever cherished excerpt from the Sadhana by Rabi Tagore