The Dream

Our life is twofold; Sleep hath its own world,
A boundary between the things misnamed

The Stade, Folkestone, Kent, CT19

Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world,
And a wide realm of wild reality,

Spring Gardens, Coding Street, Vauxhall, Lambeth, SE11

And dreams in their development have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;

Church of St John-at-Hackney, Lower Clapton Road, Hackney, E5

They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They take a weight from off waking toils,

Brentford, Middlesex, TW8

They do divide our being; they become
A portion of ourselves as of our time,

Dawlish, Devon, EX7

And look like heralds of eternity;
They pass like spirits of the past -they speak

Cleopatra's Needle, Embankment, Westminster, WC2N

Like sibyls of the future; they have power -
The tyranny of pleasure and of pain;

RAF War Memorial, Embankment, Westminster, WC2N

They make us what we were not -what they will,
And shake us with the vision that’s gone by,

George Blackall Simonds' Maiwand Lion, Forbury Gardens, Reading, Berkshire, RG1

The dread of vanished shadows -Are they so?
Is not the past all shadow? -What are they?

From Lord Byron’s The Dream (1816)

Brixton Murals

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?

Christine Thomas' Big Splash, Glenelg Road, Brixton, Lambeth, SW9

Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?

Stephen Pusey's Brixton Academy Mural, Brixton Academy, Stockwell Park Walk, Brixton, Lambeth, SW9

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

London Wall Public Art's Bellefields Road Mural 2, Bellefields Road, Brixon, Lambeth, SW9

Or does it explode?

Brian Barnes and Dale McCrea's Nuclear Dawn, Coldharbour Lane, Brixton, Lambeth, SW9

From Langston Hughes’ A Dream Deferred (1926)

Dr Salter’s Daydream

The center of every man’s existence is a dream.

Diane Corvin's Dr Salter's Daydream, Bermondsey Wall East, Bermondsey, Southwark, SE16

Death, disease, insanity, are merely material accidents, like a toothache or a twisted ankle.

Diane Corvin's Dr Salter's Daydream, Bermondsey Wall East, Bermondsey, Southwark, SE16

That these brutal forces always besiege and often capture the citadel does not prove that they are the citadel.

Diane Corvin's Dr Salter's Dream, Bermondsey East Wall, Bermondsey, Southwark. SE16

From GK Chesterton’s Twelve Types (1903)