Beware the dreams of other men, the hopes of those not shared;
Hark not to visions of one’s past ‘rise up from those who dared;
Look only now within thyself, and not to search beyond;
Seek out the truth that knows you well and to his call respond.
“He has great wealth” you hear men say, you oft hear them decry;
“T’were I but half as gilded me, how far but I would fly!
That gleaming element you seek, if wings of yours enclose;
A’drug along the earth you’d be, in tortured sad repose.
He sings so fair, he dances true, he glides across the wood;
Happiness I’d sure to find if skills mine were that good;
Yet fates you must not once forget of those who can finesse;
The moments of their merriment does life but oft compress.
But what of men whose polished words are honey from the comb;
The succulent of all the fruits sprung from such fields of loam;
Those men, they fade, and none recall their worlds of flowers fair;
Yet forced to acquiesce to beats what garish both and spare.
Our terror of existence is to live our lives unspoken;
To watch the things we try to build end all in piles a’broken;
Till we recall that mirrors fair are oft to do us wrong;
The men we liken to ourselves, tis they who don’t belong.