The dream's a joke, Till yoked with the will to act!

From Seaman's Journal, 1927-1929

Dreamer and Doer
by Ted Olson

It's easy enough, my friend to dream
Of Utopian worlds afar;
Where wealth and power and prowess gleam
Remote as the utmost star.

It's pleasant enough in dreams to cloak
The ugly, immediate fact —
But the wise man knows that the dream's a joke
Till yoked with the will to act!

For a dream's a drug or a dream's a goad,
Whichever you choose to make it.
One man it speeds on the upward road;
Another it lures to forsake it.

For years unnumbered the seers have told
In saga and story and song
Their marvelous dreams of an Age of Gold
Washed clean of all grief and wrong.

And ninety-nine are with dreams content.
But the hope of the world made new
Is the hundredth man who is grimly bent
On making the dream come true!