Ancient poetry remix!

My "Parade of Want" (2009) vs. "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens (1843)

Illustration by John Leech

I want to stay poor forever.

“You’re poor enough.”

I want to be selfless.

“Much good it has ever done you.”

I want to dream of people that meant something.

“Look upon me!”

I want to spin a web of truths.

“I won’t believe it.”

I want to escape forces of habit.

“These are but shadows of the things that have been.”

I want to fall asleep in the bed of my childhood.

“Ask me who I was.”

I want to force time to be inconsequential.

“It matters little,” she said, softly. “To you, very little.”

I want to believe in more than I do.

“You don’t believe in me.”

I want to trust that I will die happy.

“May nothing you dismay!”

I want to knock on a strangers' door and be invited in.

“As if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave.”

I want to breathe the air from twenty other countries.

“I don’t mind going if a lunch is provided,”

I want to rebuild those who matter.

“You were always a good friend to me.”

I want the father of my children to be an amazing man.

“Because I fell in love.”

I want to be contented by the sound of wind.

“You recollect the way?”

I want to grow my mind like a weed.

“Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then?”

I want to accept my inability to ever fully know.

“God knows”

I want to learn to be a duck and allow words to roll off my back.

“What else can I be, [….] when I live in such a world of fools as this?”

I want to remember that my days are numbered.

“I am a mortal, and liable to fall.”

I want to expect what I deserve.

“You fear the world too much.”

I want to feel my laughter shake the tips of my toes.

“Here is a new game”

I want to smile in the faces of adversaries.

“What do you want with me?”

I want to be confident in the life that I choose to lead.

“Why do you doubt your senses?”

I want to create good.

“Ghost of the Future!”

I want to create good.

“I know what it is!”

I want to create good.

“Do you believe in me or not?”

A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. (2018, March 4). A Christmas Carol (Original First Edition Cover; 1843 Original Illustrations in Color by John Leech). https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46/46-h/46-h.htm