The+American+Dream



1965 [| Jacob Lawrence] tempera on fiberboard 35 3/4 x 24 in. (90.8 x 61.0 cm.) Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation
 * //Dreams No. 2//**

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The nearest Dream recedes — unrealized — The Heaven we chase, Like the June Bee — before the School Boy, Invites the Race — Stoops — to an easy Clover — Dips — evades — teases — deploys — Then — to the Royal Clouds Lifts his light Pinnace — Heedless of the Boy — Staring — bewildered — at the mocking sky — Homesick for steadfast Honey — Ah, the Bee flies not That brews that rare variety! -Emily Dickinson

"His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people--his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all. The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God... and he must be about His Father's business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end." - F. Scott Fitzgerald, //The Great Gatsby//, Ch. 6

Connect Two

Shall We Journey Upon The Open Road?