The New World

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.