"We are the music makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams" I was on the RD Forum tonight, and read a post that had the above quote in it. I know it's in the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but some long-ago English class popped into my head trying to remind me that it came from a poem first. And I thought it was one that I liked. So I had to search it out. I was right. It is a poem that I like. Ode - Arthur O'Shaughnessy We are the music-makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams, Wandering by lone sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams; World-losers and world-forsakers, On whom the pale moon gleams: Yet we are the movers and shakers Of the world for ever, it seems. With wonderful deathless ditties We build up the world's great cities, And out of a fabulous story We fashion an empire's glory: One man with a dream, at pleasure, Shall go forth and conquer a crown; And three with a new song's measure Can trample an empire down. We, in the ages lying In the buried past of the earth, Built Nineveh with our sighing, And Babel itself with our mirth; And o'erthrew them with prophesying To the old of the new world's worth; For each age is a dream that is dying, Or one that is coming to birth.