The Road goes ever on and on,
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
A longdrawn carol, mournful, holy,
She chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her eyes were darken’d wholly,
And her smooth face sharpen’d slowly,
Turn’d to tower’d Camelot:
For ere she reach’d upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.
– from “The Lady of Shalott” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
They call me the Wild Rose,
but my name was Eliza Jane.
Why they call me it I do not know…
for my name was Eliza Jane.
Father, oh father, go dig my grave,
Make it both long and narrow.
Lord William died for me today.
I’ll die for him tomorrow.
They laid her to rest in the old churchyard.
Lord William was buried beside her.
And out of his heart grew a blood-red rose,
And out of hers, a briar.
They grew and grew in the old churchyard
Till they could grow no higher.
At the end they formed a true lover’s knot:
The red rose and the briar.
– from “Barbara Allen”
She cried, “Laura,” up the garden,
“Did you miss me?
Come and kiss me.
Never mind my bruises,
Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices
Squeez’d from goblin fruits for you,
Goblin pulp and goblin dew.
Eat me, drink me, love me;
Laura, make much of me;
For your sake I have braved the glen
And had to do with goblin merchant men.”
– from “Goblin Market” by Christina Rossetti
But where have we come, and where shall we end?
If dreams can’t come true, then why not pretend?
We mask our faces
and wear strange hats,
and moan like witches
and screech like cats,
and jump like goblins
and thump like elves,
and almost manage
to scare ourselves!
Little Orphan Annie says,
“When the blaze is blue,
an’ the lamp-wick sputters,
an’ the wind goes ‘woooooo’
an’ you hear the crickets quiet down,
an’ the moon is gray,
an’ the lightnin’ bugs’ lanterns
are all hid away–
You better mind yer parents,
an’ yer teachers fond an’ dear,
an’ cherish them that loves you,
an’ dry the orphan’s tear,
an’ help the poor an’ needy ones
‘at clusters all about,
Or the gobble-uns’ll get you
If you
Don’t
Watch
Out!”
But there’s no peace in wandering,
The road’s not made for rest.
And footsore fools will never know
What home might suit them best.
Wrote A Pome (Tumblr Backup) 