HOLD FAST YOUR DREAMS

 

HOLD FAST YOUR DREAMS

 

            ‘Hold Fast Your Dreams” is an inspirational poem by the American poetess Louise Driscoll (1875-1957). By dreams she means our aims, goals,   hopes, plans, designs, wishes,  desires, yearnings,  aspirations, ambitions, etc.

               The key idea of the poem is that we should create a sacred place in our hearts where dreams can  grow undisturbed and we can endeavour to change them into realities despite all difficulties and hardships.

 

            Even when dreams are likely to remain untrue , we should let them grow and flourish.

 

            To put it briefly, he poem is a call to action to nurture one’s inner world of aspirations, as a source of strength and the ability to bounce back from difficult situations.

             In short, it is necessary to maintain a positive attitude  in life even when we are surrounded by adversities.

                     

            Here is the full text of the poem:

 

                              Hold fast your dreams!

Within your heart

Keep one still, secret spot

Where dreams may go,

And, sheltered so,

May thrive and grow

Where doubt and fear are not.

 

O keep a place apart,

Within your heart,

For little dreams to go.

Think still of lovely things that are not true.

Let wish and magic work at will in you.

Be sometimes blind to sorrow.  Make believe.

 

Forget the calm that lies

In disillusioned eyes.

Though we all know that we must die,

Yet you and I

May walk like gods and be

Even now at home in immortality.

 

We see so many ugly things-

Deceits and wrongs and quarrellings;

We know, alas we know

How quickly fade

The color in the west,

The bloom upon the flower,

The bloom upon the breast

And youth's blind hour.

 

Yet keep within your heart

A place apart

Where little dreams may go,

May thrive and grow.

Hold fast-hold fast your dreams!

                                                                        *******

 

G. R. Kanwal

15 July 2025