The Dream
Author's Note

This is a poem similar to "The Retreat" by Henry Vaughan. It's about the desire to "return to innocence" I sometimes feel. It also reminds me of Dylan Thomas' "Do not go gentle into that good night", only the other way around. This poem looks at the end of childhood as awakening from a pleasant dream. It could be paraphrased as "do not go gentle into that good day" I suppose.

This may be the only poem I've ever written that got me choked up as I wrote it. It is a bitter-sweet sadness to think that the sentiment expressed in stanza three probably will not happen for my daughter. This world is too "noisy" and "clamourous", beckoning all children out of the sweet dream of childhood far too soon. I hope she can enjoy childhood innocence as long as possible though.

Kevin Ranville