The way of dreams, the wonder-way,
Wonder and winding streams,
Blue-Bird, two dreamers ask of you
To point the way of dreams.
The way is dangerous, we know,
And much beset with dread;
But then, it is the only way,
Blue-Bird, we care to tread.
For this we know: no fact or fear
Of the dream-world we seek
Can be so terrible to us
As those that, week by week,
Day in, day out, bleach and benumb
The sacred self sincere,
The death domestic who hath faced
Hath faced the whole of fear.
We are so fearful we may lose
The thrill and scent of things,
Forget the way to smell a flower,
Hear a bird when it sings.
O Blue-Bird, sing us on our way
Beyond the world that seems—
Two dreamers who have lost their way—
Back to the world of dreams.
To this the Blue-Bird made answer in a song, which, as before, I translate into grown-up language:
The way of dreams—the Blue-Bird sang—
Is never hard to find,
So soon as you have really left
The grown-up world behind.
So soon as you have come to see
That what the others call
Realities, for such as you,
Are never real at all;
So soon as you have ceased to care
What others say or do,
And understand that they are they,
And you—thank God!—are you.
Then is your foot upon the path,
Your journey well begun,
And safe the road for you to tread,
Moonlight, or morning sun.