Dreaming

Dreaming is a fool's delight,

Some say --

Yet I have sat and dreamed the

Day away.

Songs I have heard that I had

Thought were dead

And bits of tune have drifted

Through my head

That I once whistled on the

Way to school.

Do dreams like that make any

One a fool?

You'd be amazed at all the faces

I have seen,

Though dimming distant years

Have come between.

That time I stood amidst my

Friends and this

Sweet wasted day I use to

Reminisce

A meadow I have roamed where

Flowers' scent

And call of birds were everywhere

I went.

The river flowed the same around

The bend.

Ah, I could wish that this would

Never end.

But night is here.  A blissful

Squandered day

Must close where waters sing and

Willows sway.

So twilight brings me but the

Dream of dreams;

I sit in silence here, and now

It seems

That all the days I've strewn

Along the track

Are far more sunny when I

Bring them back.

Then do not smile at me

If I retrieve

These vanished joys.  For you

Will come to believe,

The same as I, that life's

Most blessed dower

Is in the day for dreaming

Dreams -- the wasted hour!

(First published in Along the Lane: Dedicated to the memory of Thomas William Larsen, who lost his life in World War II)