La Vida Es Sueno (Life's A Dream) Poem by Rose Falcone

We live, while we see the sun,
Where life and dreams are as one;
And living has taught me this,
Man dreams the life that's his,

Until his living has been done.
The king dreams he is king,
and lives in deceit of a king,
Commanding and governing;

And all the praise which he receives
Is written in the wind and leaves
With a little dust along the way
Until the breeze blows it all astray

When death ends all with just a breath.
Where then is the gain of a throne,
That too shall perish and not be known
In the other dream that which is death?

Rich man dreams of riches and fears,
The fears that those riches can breed;
The poor man dreams of only need,
And all his sorrows and all his tears;

Dreams he that prospers through the years,
Dreams he that feigns and then foregoes,
Dreams he that rails upon his foes;
Dreams he that no one dare oppose

And in all the world, I see,
Man dreams whatever he be,
And his own dream no man knows.
The deepest darkest to expose

And I too dream and behold,
I dream that I am bound with chains,
I dream that these present pains
Were fortunate ways of old.

What is life? a fiction, a frenzy, a shadow. an illusion
And the greatest good is but small,
That all of life is a dream to all,
And that dreams themselves... are merely dreams.

Calderon de la Barca (1600-1681)

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