A Dream Within A Dream

A Dream Within A Dream
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow --
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if Hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand --
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep -- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

...Edgar Allen Poe

I LOVE ART AND I CAN ONLY DREAM OF OWINING MADONNA PAINTING BYby Leonardo da Vinci

by Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was an Italian Renaissance architect, musician, inventor, engineer, sculptor and painter. He has been described as the archetype of the "Renaissance man" and as a universal genius. Leonardo is famous for his masterly paintings, such as The Last Supper and Mona Lisa. He is also known for designing many inventions that anticipated modern technology but were rarely constructed in his lifetime. In addition, he helped advance the study of anatomy, astronomy, and civil engineering.

ron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity, and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigors of the mind. He who possesses most must be most afraid of loss.
A good painter has two main objects to paint, man and the intention of his soul. The former is easy, the latter hard as he has to represent it by the attitude and movement of the limbs.
Where the spirit does not work with the hand there is no art.
One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.
Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master.
Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason.
As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.
He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.
Human subtelty will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does Nature, because in her inventions, nothing is lacking and nothing is superfluous.
I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.
I have offended God and mankind because my work didn't reach the quality it should have.
Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is doing something else.
Marriage is like putting your hand into a bag of snakes in the hope of pulling out an eel.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
The function of muscle is to pull and not to push, except in the case of the genitals and the tongue.
The poet ranks far below the painter in the representation of visible things, and far below the musician in that of invisible things.
While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.
Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination when awake?
You do ill if you praise, but worse if you censure, what you do not understand.

INFORMATION FROM THE INTERNET,
MANY THANKS FOR  IKNOWLEDGE I HAVE GAINED
NANETTE DORAN

Cleopatra Bust from Altes Museum in Berlin, Germany.

Public Domain. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

Cleopatra (January 69 B.C. - August 12, 30 B.C.) was the last pharaoh of Egypt. Following her death, Rome took over as ruler of Egypt. Cleopatra was not an Egyptian, however, despite being pharaoh, but a Macedonian in the Ptolemaic dynasty which the Macedonian Ptolemy I Soter started. Ptolemy was a military leader under Alexander the great and possibly a close relative.
Cleopatra was one of several children of Ptolemy XII Auletes, a descendant of Alexander's general. Her two older sisters were Berenice IV and Cleopatra VI who may have died early in life. Berenice staged a coup while Auletes was in power. With Roman backing, Auletes was able to regain the throne and have his daughter Berenice executed.

An Egyptian custom that the Macedonian Ptolemies adopted was to have pharaohs marry their siblings. Thus when Ptolemy XII Auletes died, he left the care of Egypt in the hand of Cleopatra (aged about 18) and her younger brother Ptolemy XIII (aged about 12). Ptolemy XIII was influenced by his courtiers and forced Cleopatra to flee from Egypt. She regained control of Egypt through the help of Julius Caesar, with whom she had an affair and a son named Caesarion.
Following the death of Ptolemy XIII, Cleopatra married an even younger brother, Ptolemy XIV. In time she ruled along with her son Caesarion.
Cleopatra is known for her affairs with Caesar and Mark Antony, by whom she had three children, and her suicide by snake bite after her husband Antony took his own life.
After the death of Cleopatra, Octavian took control of Egypt, putting it into Roman hands.

CLAIMS TO BE REINCARNATE

It seems that Michael Jackson wasn’t the only person to put himself through extensive cosmetic surgery in order to make himself look like a bust of an ancient Egyptian. Nileen Namita, a 49-year-old artist from Brighton, has undergone no less than 51 cosmetic operations, spending over £200,000 pounds in the process, in order to sculpt herself into the living image of Queen Nefertiti.


“Throughout my childhood and teen years I had constant vivid dreams of this ancient queen. They were visions of incredible intensity - I could see where she lived, her servants, her rooms, even the food she ate - and although at first I found the dreams frightening, I began to research what they meant.
Aged 23 I underwent psychoanalysis with a counsellor. Slowly I began to realise that I was having these dreams because I am a reincarnation of Nefertiti.”
Which Mummy?
The ‘before and after’ photos show just how radical a transformation Namita has undergone. Her new shapely lips and smokey eyes certainly reflect Nefertiti's glamourous look. But how authentic is the famous bust that Namita's plastic surgeon presumably used as a model? Evidence suggests that the bust may be a fake, created in the 1920s. If so, it could reveal more about the art deco fashions of the time than the accurate physical characteristics of Nefertiti.

"Slowly I began to realise that I was having these dreams because I am a reincarnation of Nefertiti"

Before the surgery, Namita bore more of a resemblance to 3D reconstructions of King Tut – the soft-faced, feminine, youthful-looking King of the same era - than to the famous queen.
There is some evidence that Nefertiti could actually have been the mother of King Tut, or, more probably, his mother-in-law. Certainly, most experts agree that Nefertiti’s husband, Akhenaten, was the father of the boy king.

“Throughout my childhood and teen years I had constant vivid dreams of this ancient queen. They were visions of incredible intensity - I could see where she lived, her servants, her rooms, even the food she ate - and although at first I found the dreams frightening, I began to research what they meant.
Aged 23 I underwent psychoanalysis with a counsellor. Slowly I began to realise that I was having these dreams because I am a reincarnation of Nefertiti.”

Perhaps Namita's counsellor got it wrong, and she is actually the reincarnation of King Tut? That would explain why she has such vivid memories of teatime with Nefertiti!

I DREAM OF A PEACEFUL WORLD

Once in the dream of a night I stood
Lone in the light of a magical wood,
Soul-deep in visions that poppy-like sprang;
And spirits of Truth were the birds that sang,
And spirits of Love were the stars that glowed,
And spirits of Peace were the streams that flowed
In that magical wood in the land of sleep.

Lone in the light of that magical grove,
I felt the stars of the spirits of Love
Gather and gleam round my delicate youth,
And I heard the song of the spirits of Truth;
To quench my longing I bent me low
By the streams of the spirits of Peace that flow
In that magical wood in the land of sleep.