Still II ~ A House of Hopes and Dreams

- CHAPTER TWENTY -

Two

- chapter index -
pg. 1 - Introduction | pg. 2 - Eight | pg. 3 - Eight | pg. 4 - Eight | pg. 5 - Eight | pg. 6 - Eight
pg. 7 - The Dharma Wheel | pg. 8 - Still | pg. 9 - Envelopes of Yesterday | pg. 10 - A Tumbling Kite
pg. 11 - An Empty Town | pg. 12 - The Piper | pg. 13 - A House of Hopes and Dreams
pg. 14 - The Night People | pg. 15 - River of Life | pg. 16 - Photos of Ghosts
pg. 17 - Promenade the Puzzle

site index

A House of Hopes and Dreams , a very poignant ballad made to be sung in smoky cabarets, sounds so much like the wife in The Letters , it could easily replace that song on Islands . However, this is another of the early songs, written circa 1969.

"Across the floor lie broken bowls of pride
Unlatch the door and scratch holes in the night
She'll be there someday, tides turn, winds change
You know, Oh you know."

"Tides turn, winds change". "Change, sang the Sea Goat, is constant as the tides." "Like the changeable tides of the..." The tides, the processes of nature, as a metaphor for change and inevitability, one of the recurring themes of this album.

"A house of hopes and dreams I built one too
Drunk on gypsy violins like you
Ran naked through the flames and burnt like you."

Like the flames of Lizard . Individuating is an inner and outer process.

"Unbuttoned times when two laid down as one
Eyes on eyes where catherine wheels spun."

Catherine wheel

A kind of firework, in the form of a wheel, which is driven round by the recoil from the explosion of the various squibs of which it is composed.

The firework is named for St. Catherine.

Virgin and martyr of noble birth in Alexandria. She adroitly defended the Christian faith at a public disputation (c. 310) with certain heathen philosophers at the command of Emperor Maximinus, for which she was put on a wheel like that of a chaff-cutter. Legend says that as soon as the wheel turned, her bonds were miraculously broken; so she was beheaded. Hence the name Catherine wheel. She is the patron saint of wheel-wrights. Source: Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1981).

- Your Dictionary

"Catherine of Alexandria (d. 310 AD) refused to marry the emperor, and was imprisoned. Christ appeared and she wed him, a scene depicted in art as The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine. Enraged, the emperor had a special spiked wheel designed for her torture, but the wheel broke and she was unharmed."

- The Circle

So the catherine wheel is a reference to indoor fireworks as well as a symbol of suffering and triumph in love.

"Now every stale day is a haywire highway
Alone, so alone.

A house of hopes and dreams I built one too
Danced upon the tables just like you
Swam the sea of dreams and drowned like you."

"To juggle cruets full of dreams", "a host of dreams", "a plague of dreams".

"The cave of tears you choked and almost cried
Emotions horse's roped and staked inside."

A little touch of Plato's Phaedrus (see chapter ten, Mirrors ).

"Never could show her but somehow hoped to know her
Again, again, again to build
A house of hopes and dreams upon
a pack of painted cards;
To build a house of hopes and dreams
with bricks of loaded dice;
To build a house of hopes and dreams
with roulette wheels for stairs;
To build a house of hopes and dreams
Secured and bound with love,
With love, with love, with love, with love
Build strong and sure with love . . . . . .

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