A Breath of Our Inspiration

I didn't have a Thanksgiving post (obviously). I don't know if anyone missed me in my week's absence, somehow I doubt it. First, I'd like to direct people to AJ's and Matt's blogs, to give them words of encouragement and love and all that in this time.

I came across the following poem again, and it was, as a line in there, "A breath of our inspiration." There are powerful words in that poem, words of inspiration and change. That we can all be an agent of change. That we are the shapers of our collective future. I know not everyone's fond of poetry, but it's a good read. Enjoy.

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Ode
by Arthur O'Shaughnessy (1844 - 1881)


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 a kingdom down.

We, in the ages lying,
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveth with our sighing,
And Babel itself in 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.

A breath of our inspiration
Is the life of each generation;
A wondrous thing of our dreaming
Unearthly, impossible seeming --
The soldier, the king, and the peasant
Are working together in one,
Till our dream shall become their present,
And their work in the world be done.

They had no vision amazing
Of the goodly house they are raising;
They had no divine foreshadowing
Of the land to which they are going:
But on one man's soul it hath broken,
A light that doth not depart;
And his look, or a word he hath spoken,
Wrought flame in another man's heart.

And therefore to-day is thrilling
With a past day's late fulfilling;
And the multitudes are enlisted
In the faith that their fathers resisted,
And, scorning the dream of to-morrow,
Are bringing to pass, as they may,
In the world, for its joy or its sorrow,
The dream that was scorned yesterday.

But we, with our dreaming and singing,
Ceaseless and sorrowless we!
The glory about us clinging
Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing:
O men! It must ever be
That we dwell, in our dreaming and singing,
A little apart from ye.

For we are afar with the dawning
And the suns that are not yet high,
And out of the infinite morning
Intrepid you hear us cry --
How, spite of your human scorning,
Once more God's future draws nigh,
And already goes forth the warning
That ye of the past must die.

Great hail! We cry to the comers
From the dazzling unknown shore;
Bring us hither your sun and your summers;
And renew our world as of yore;
You shall teach us your song's new numbers,
And things we dreamed not before:
Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers,
And a singer who sings no more.

Found at this link.
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---TANGENT---
Okay, so I seem to have this ever-growing list of blogs I intend on reading and then linking to my blog. I will work on that . . . once I'm done with my term paper and exams and have nothing to do over Winter Break (in about 3 weeks). I also need to go through all the blogs and sort them out over Winter Break (I have WAY too many links, and they just keep increasing). In the mean time, I'd like to link to these 3 blogs that I managed to catch up on:

Call The Shots
The Covert Homo
This is my life...

So go over and say "Hi," among other nice things. :D
---END TANGENT---