"The Impossible Dream"

from MAN OF LA MANCHA (1972)

music by Mitch Leigh and lyrics by Joe Darion

"The Impossible Dream" (a .MP3 file courtesy MGM).

To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far

To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into Hell
For a heavenly cause

And I know if I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our life’s star,
    Hath had elsewhere its setting,
      And cometh from afar.
    Not in entire forgetfulness,
    And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory, do we come
    From God, who is our home.

William Wordsworth:Intimations of Immortality Stanza 5

(Also sung in the Music Group at the Ashram)

 
                           
                           
                           TO EACH HIS DULCINEA (To Every Man His Dream)
                           From Man of La Mancha
                           (Joe Darion / Mitch Leigh)
                           
                           
                           To each his Dulcinea ...
                           
                           That he alone can name,
                           To each a secret hiding place:
                           Where he can find the haunting face --
                           To light his secret flame ...
                           
                           For with his Dulcinea beside him so to stand,
                           A man can do quite anything:
                           Outfly the bird upon the wing --
                           Hold moonlight in his hand ...
                           
                           Yet if you build your life on dreams,
                           It's prudent to recall:
                           A man with moonlight in his hands --
                           Has nothing there at all ...
                           
                           There is no Dulcinea ...
                           
                           She's made of flame and air,
                           And yet how lovely life would seem:
                           If every man could weave a dream --
                           To keep him from despair.
                           
                           To each his Dulcinea ...
                           Though she's only flame and air ...