nd haste to Finistere.

Oh, I will go to Finistere, there's nothing that can hold me back.
I'll laugh with Yves and Leon, and I'll chaff with Rose and Jeanne;
I'll seek the little, quaint _buvette_ that's kept by Mother Merdrinac
Who wears a cap of many frills, and swears just like a man.
I'll yarn with hearty, hairy chaps who dance and leap and crack their heels;
Who swallow cupfuls of cognac and never turn a hair;
I'll watch the nut-brown boats come in with mullet, plaice and conger eels,
The jeweled harvest of the sea they reap in Finistere.

Yes, I'll come back from Finistere with memories of shining days,
Of scaly nets and salty men in overalls of brown;
Of ancient women knitting as they watch the tethered cattle graze
By little nestling beaches where the gorse goes blazing down;
Of headlands silvering the sea, of Calvarys against the sky,
Of scorn of angry sunsets, and of Carnac grim and bare;
Oh, won't I have the leaping veins, and tawny cheek and sparkling eye,
When I come back to Montparnasse and dream of Finistere.

_Two days later_.

Behold me with staff and scrip, footing it merrily in the Land of
Pardons. I have no goal. When I am weary I stop at some _auberge_; when
I am rested I go on again. Neither do I put any constraint on my
spirit. No subduing of the mind to the task of the moment. I dream to
heart's content.

My dreams stretch into the future. I see myself a singer of simple
songs, a laureate of the under-dog. I will write books, a score of
them. I will voyage far and wide. I will . . .

But there! Dreams are dangerous. They waste the time one should spend
in making them come true. Yet when we do make them come true, we find
the vision sweeter than the reality. How much of our happiness do we
owe to dreams? I have in mind one old chap who used to herd the sheep
on my uncle's farm.

Old David Smail

He dreamed away his hours in school;
He sat with such an absent air,
The master reckoned him a fool,
And gave him up in dull despair.

When other lads were making hay
You'd find him loafing by the stream;
He'd take a book and slip away,
And just pretend to fish . . . and dream.

His brothers passed him in the race;
They climbed the hill and clutched the prize.
He did not seem to heed, his face
Was tranquil as the evening skies.

He lived apart, he spoke with few;