Page 8 - I have a dream
P. 8
THE ENGLISH SCHOOL MA GA ZINE 2022 THE ENGLISH SCHOOL MA GA ZINE 2022
Andriana Georgia Papacosta 4B
And there are those that seem to come of their
own bidding, welcome or not, in our unconscious
state. Sleep brings all those imaginings and fears
caught through the dredge net which has
trammelled through our daily existence- those
dreams which express our deep uncensored
longings or bring our inexpressible fears into
nerve-wracking 3-D reality. Dreams can entertain,
inspire, embarrass, shock, or sound a warning
which makes us reflect on the decisions we make.
Sometimes, depending on how far they take us on
our personal narrative, they steer us away from
ill-advised ambitions or fantasies as they play out
the negative consequences in our imagination,
before they play out in real life. Or certain plot
lines and symbolisms recur as monikers to remind
us about what needs fixing in our lives, those
crucial aspects of mental and emotional health
maintenance which so often we neglect in daily
pursuit of routine task completion- what we think
is most important in our study or work lives.
One thing is certain and that is that as humans,
dreams are an essential part of our being.
Sometimes the strength of positive dreams are
essentially all we have to offer those we love, and
perhaps, because they come from deep within our
psyche, and expose our vulnerability, they are the
greatest gift. The renowned Irish poet W.B. Yeats
explored this theme in his famous poem ‘He
Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’ in his 1899 third
volume of poems, ‘The Wind Among the Reeds.’
Originally entitled ‘Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of
Heaven’, with Aedh being the romantic but
melancholic knight-like speaker of the poem, it was
a love poem for Yeats’ muse Maud Gonne, a
woman whom Yeats wooed for many years but
never married. The speaker laments his lack of
heavenly cloths to lay as homage under his lover’s
feet, and begs her to respect the dreams he
humbly offers her instead:
He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
reflections Ursula Pantelides Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
W B Yeats
Senior Assistant Head
The poem and its notion of unrequited love has
captured the imagination of many subsequent
WE ALL HAVE
writers, poets, artists and filmmakers. For example
the poem in David Jones’ 1987 film 84 Charing
Cross Road. It has also inspired many songs such as
06 DREAMS… watch out for Anthony Hopkins’ brilliant reading of
The Cranberries’ ‘Delilah’ and is a recurrent
metaphor in William Nicholson’s 2009 novel, ‘The
Unfortunately, we are not all able to realise our
Dreams are weird and wonderful things. There Secret Intensity of Everyday Life’.
conscious dreams, due to our lack of skill,
are those we create, or think we create, from understanding or opportunity. Sometimes, like
our conscious ambitions and fantasies. These we Aedh, the reality of life just takes us in a different
direction. However, that doesn’t mean we have to
feed from moment to moment, to drive us to stop trying to achieve our goals, particularly when
they are genuinely altruistic. And it doesn’t stop us
our personal goals or entertain ourselves with respecting, supporting and enabling others’
the endless fanciful possibilities of ‘what if’ wish dreams, in whatever way we can, especially when
they aim at justice and harmony in the world- that
fulfillment. driving force which makes us all truly human.
