Have You No Thought, O Dreamer?

I know, I know, I promised sunshine and such. But it's a harder promise to fulfill than I realized.

Summertime. I love summer nights. The past couple nights I've driven my car out to a good view of the sunset. I've parked and read poetry aloud, letting my little car absorb my words. Oh what poems that car has heard!

Whitman is a recent favorite of mine. I reread Mary Downing Hahn's The Wind Blows Backward just a few short weeks ago. The novel was loaded with Whitman's work. It launched me into giving him a closer look. There is something so moving, so raw, so familiar about Whitman. I hope you enjoy tonight's poem. It certainly lingered in my mind long after I read it.

Are You the New Person Drawn Toward Me?
Walt Whitman

ARE you the new person drawn toward me?
To begin with take warning, I am surely far different from what you
suppose;
Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal?
Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover?
Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloy'd satisfaction?
Do you think I am trusty and faithful?
Do you see no further than this facade, this smooth and tolerant
manner of me?
Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real
heroic man?
Have you no thought O dreamer that it may be all maya, illusion?