I saw a new world in my dream,
Where all the folks alike did seem;
There was no Child, there was no Mother,
There was no Change, there was no Other,
For everything was Same, the Same;
There was no praise, there was no blame;
There was neither Need nor Help for it;
There was nothing fitting, or unfit.
Nobody laughed, nobody wept;
None grew weary, and so none slept;
There was nobody born, and nobody wed;
This world was a world of the living-dead.
I longed to hear the Time-Clock strike
In the world where the people were all alike;
I hated Same, I hated For-Ever,
I longed to say Neither, or even Never.
I longed to mend, I longed to make,
I longed to give, I longed to take,
I longed for a change, whatever came after,
I longed for crying, I longed for laughter.
At last I heard the Time-Clock boom,
And woke from my dream in my little room;
With a smile on her lips my mother was nigh,
And I heard the Baby crow and cry.
And I thought to myself,—How nice it is
For me to live in a world like this,
Where things can happen, and clocks can strike,
And none of the people are made alike;
Where Love wants this, and Pain wants that,
And all our hearts want Tit for Tat
In the jumbles we make with our heads and our hands,
In a world that nobody understands,
But with work, and hope, and the right to call
Upon Him who sees it and knows us all.