Poetry for the Traveller
Barry and Margaret Williamson
Locked Down in the Fylde
Updated March 2021
Locked Down in the Fylde
Updated March 2021
Pleasure in the Pathless Woods
Margaret finds Byron's 'Pleasure in the Pathless Woods' appropriate for the isolation of 2020, the year of Covid. We remember the prominent statue of Byron in the Garden of Heroes in Messolonghi, Northern Greece, where the poet died of fever in 1824 while fighting in the Greek War of Independence.
“There is pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is rapture in the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar.
I love not man the less, but Nature more.”
Lord Byron, 4th Canto of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
The Road Not Taken
Barry takes the opportunity to quote in full the Robert Frost poem which otherwise is commonly reduced to its last three lines.
"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
Kaleidoscope
Margaret recalls a favourite song from her student days in 1968 – words and music by American poet and singer Rod McKuen.
"Come with me, what wonders we'll find,
The ducks on the millpond that swim in the mind.
Come with me, together we'll go,
Where buttercups shoot through the roof of the snow.
And many the sights that we'll see.
I'll look in your eyes and see me.
Chorus: K, I, Kaleidoscope
Love is another color for hope.
Pain is a separate color from joy,
How many colors there are to enjoy.
Come with me, through valleys of green
We'll live like the mud lark deep down in a dream,
Come with me, take hold of my hand
I'll walk you past panthers asleep in the sand,
How lucky some people will be
To look in our eyes and see we.
Chorus
Come with me, stay close by my side
The road is so rocky, the world is so wide,
Come with me, and we will go far
Far is forever, wherever we are
How wise is our world and how new,
You'll look in my eyes and see you.
Chorus"
Stone Arise!
Written by the Croatian poet, Vesna Parun, and translated and sent to us by Verica Peacock, this poem was published by a Croatian newspaper to celebrate the July 2004 re-opening of the bridge over the River Neretva in Mostar, Bosnia-Hercegovina. The original Turkish bridge, built in 1566, was destroyed by Croat shelling in November 1993.
"Wake up, stone, gild the skies!
Our old bridge from ashes returns.
Neretva, river of green eyes, open them wide, stop!
This July day should be your holiday, starry balm on your wound.
Since Neretva flowed in ancient times, it has never been known
that man perishes, stone resurrects, and a heart beats in stone.
Start swimming, swan, flower long-necked, a playful wave escort you to its source.
0h, arise, stone, from dust return!
While you were falling we knew: from the dead you would rise!"
Home is the Sailor, Home from the Sea
The following poem was suggested by Ken Norris of England. He writes:
Recently I've been asked by various groups to talk to them about our travels. I entitle them "Traveller or Tourist?" and try to add humour by recounting the funny incidents which we seem to encounter on many of our journeys. People often ask how I developed my Wanderlust, and I tell them of two inspirational teachers and an author, all of whom I hold responsible.
The author is Robert Louis Stevenson, and we're off to pay my respects. After an obligatory stop over at LA (I'd promised to stay out of the USA until their Immigration Service treated us as friends rather than suspected terrorists), we fly to Raritonga and Aiutaki in the Cook Islands, then to Nadi in Fiji which we use as a base for triangular flights to Nuku'alofa in Tonga and onwards to Apia in Samoa, where we stay at Aggie Grey's hotel, (shades of James Mitchener). While there, we hope we shall be fit enough to walk up the local mountain to visit RLS's grave. This is the spot where his famous poem is inscribed on his headstone:
"Under the wide and starry sky, dig the grave and let me lie,
Glad did I live and gladly die, and I laid me down with a will.
This is the verse you grave for me, Here he lies where he longed to be.
Home is the sailor, home from the sea, and the hunter home from the hill."
It was RLS who inspired much of my interest in exploration, and who once commented to the effect "Give me a map and I'm a happy man", which is exactly my own experience.
The Men that Don't Fit In
Patricia Bird, an English motorhomer writes that she saw this quote from a poem by Robert W Service in a motorhome magazine and thinks that 'perhaps it fits us wanderers'. We are sure it does!
"There's a race of men that don't fit in, A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin, And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood, And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood, And they don't know how to rest.
If they just went straight they might go far; They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are, And they want the strange and new."
Irish Prayer
As a cyclist, Margaret particularly likes the second line.
"May the road rise to meet you
May the wind be always at your back
May the sun shine warm upon your face
The rains fall soft upon your fields and, until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand."
The Thin Place
From Ian Inglis, Balquhidder, Scotland.
"The old man looks out to the island. He says this place is endless thin
There's no real distance here to mention. We might all fall in, all fall in
No distance to the spirits of the living. No distance to the spirits of the dead
And as he turned his eyes were shining. And he proudly said
Feel so near to the howling of the wind. Feel so near to the crashing of the waves
Feel so near to the flowers in the field. Feel so near."
Rest up, Rest up
By Jenny Joseph and a favourite of Ian Inglis, Balquhidder, Scotland.
"Hang your hat on the peg Rest up, rest up
Fling your coat on the bed For you have travelled many miles to see me.
Put your feet on the bench Rest up, rest up
Heave of your heavy boots For you have come through winter days to see me.
Settle down by the fire Rest up, rest up
Lean back and smile at me For after all this time and travelling
Oh traveller, I'm glad to see you.
On Being Alive
Written by Keith Durham, Cuba 1998.
"No watch, no date, no days, only time . . . . time
To listen to tropical rain on tin roofs, to crickets, birdsong and bullfrogs
To talk to machete-wielding creole youngsters cutting down grass in rain gutters
To see armies of ants destroying trees in order to build their nests and fireflies lighting the way home
To feel the warmth of the people, the breeze, the sweat from tropical heat
To be reassured of man's innate goodness towards fellow man
To think. To dream. To be. To live."
Voyage to Greece
Oscar Wilde, Impression de Voyage.
"The sea was sapphire coloured, and the sky /Burned like a heated opal through the air;
We hoisted sail; the wind was blowing fair /For the blue lands that to the eastward lie.
From the steep prow I marked with quickening eye /Zakynthos, every olive grove and creek,
Ithaka's cliff, Lycaon's snowy peak /And all the flower-strewn hills of Arcady.
The flapping of the sail against the mast, /The ripple of the water on the side,
The ripple of girls' laughter at the stern /The only sounds - when 'gan the West to burn,
And a red sun upon the seas to ride. /I stood upon the soil of Greece at last!"
Chinese Poem
"Long, long must be our parting; I was not destined to tell you thoughts.
I stood on tiptoe gazing into the distance, Interminably gazing at the road that had taken you.
With thoughts of you my mind is obsessed; In my dreams I see the light of your face.
Now you are started on your long journey, Each day brings you further from me.
Oh, that I had a bird's wings And high flying could follow you."
Superstition
Algernon Swinburne.
"Souls there are that for soul's affright, Bow down and cower in the sun's glad sight
Clothed round with faith that is one with fear And dark with doubt of the live world's light."
Ithaka
Translated from C P Cavafy's Greek poem.
"As you set out for Ithaka hope your road is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery.
Pray that your journey may be long, That many may those summer months be,
When with what pleasure, what untold delight, You enter harbours never seen before.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind. Arriving there is what you're destined for.
But don't hurry the journey at all. Better if it lasts for years,
So you're old by the time you reach the island, wealthy with all you've gained on the way,
Not expecting Ithaka to make you rich. Ithaka gave you the marvellous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out. She has nothing left to give you now."
To His Coy Mistress
Andrew Marvell: like Barry, an old boy of Hull Grammar School!
"Had we but world enough, and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime. . . .
But at my back I always hear Time's wingéd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity . . .
The grave's a fine and private place, But none, I think, do there embrace.
Had we but world enough, and time This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way To walk, and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would Love you ten years before the flood
And you should, if you please, refuse Till the conversion of the Jews."
The Odyssey
Lewis Owen sent this touch of the Odyssey - it's the opening of Ezra Pound's first Pisan Canto.
"And then went down to the ship,
Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and
We set up mast and sail on that swart ship,
Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also
Heavy with weeping, so winds from sternward
Bore us out onward with bellying canvas,
Circe's this craft, the trim-coiffed goddess.
Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller,
Thus with stretched sail, we went over sea till day's end.
Sun to his slumber, shadows o'er all the ocean."
Spring Morning
Rev Murdoch and Dr Anne MacKenzie from Scotland sent this poem by their friend, Stephen Eric Smyth.
"Light as the touch of angel fingers the tiny weight of a blackbird
sheds an ancient branch of its snow.
At this harp string's pluck the whole forest quivers.
Together, we throw back our heads and pitch our song clearly
into creation's rising chorus."
Road Works
Written by Eve Williamson, Christmas 1995.
"Silently I climb the hills of my life, alone but not lonely, trying to find out who I am
Why I'm here on this particular track of the space/time continuum
And if there is a going back and a going forward, are they the same?
Perpetual revolution. The wheels turn and I turn. Everything changes yet I remain the same, trapped in the box I call 'me'
The labels and structures of my identity… Awareness and physical reality are so different. Inside the box I can dream
On the road, sensation gives purpose, contact. Something to do, somewhere to go People to meet
Where are they? All the people who love and care and understand? Do they know I'm here? Do they listen?
Are they inside or outside of me? To touch without contact,
To talk without conversation, To do without action: These are my fears. The wasteland of hope
Have I found what I'm looking for? Is it there all the time in the subliminal messages?
The feelings that won't go away? I need a response from someone other than me.
In my search for freedom I have stretched the meaning of loneliness to its limit
Am I just a rag doll tied to the wheel of life? Always the next journey
Never the coming home.
Margaret finds Byron's 'Pleasure in the Pathless Woods' appropriate for the isolation of 2020, the year of Covid. We remember the prominent statue of Byron in the Garden of Heroes in Messolonghi, Northern Greece, where the poet died of fever in 1824 while fighting in the Greek War of Independence.
“There is pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is rapture in the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar.
I love not man the less, but Nature more.”
Lord Byron, 4th Canto of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
The Road Not Taken
Barry takes the opportunity to quote in full the Robert Frost poem which otherwise is commonly reduced to its last three lines.
"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
Kaleidoscope
Margaret recalls a favourite song from her student days in 1968 – words and music by American poet and singer Rod McKuen.
"Come with me, what wonders we'll find,
The ducks on the millpond that swim in the mind.
Come with me, together we'll go,
Where buttercups shoot through the roof of the snow.
And many the sights that we'll see.
I'll look in your eyes and see me.
Chorus: K, I, Kaleidoscope
Love is another color for hope.
Pain is a separate color from joy,
How many colors there are to enjoy.
Come with me, through valleys of green
We'll live like the mud lark deep down in a dream,
Come with me, take hold of my hand
I'll walk you past panthers asleep in the sand,
How lucky some people will be
To look in our eyes and see we.
Chorus
Come with me, stay close by my side
The road is so rocky, the world is so wide,
Come with me, and we will go far
Far is forever, wherever we are
How wise is our world and how new,
You'll look in my eyes and see you.
Chorus"
Stone Arise!
Written by the Croatian poet, Vesna Parun, and translated and sent to us by Verica Peacock, this poem was published by a Croatian newspaper to celebrate the July 2004 re-opening of the bridge over the River Neretva in Mostar, Bosnia-Hercegovina. The original Turkish bridge, built in 1566, was destroyed by Croat shelling in November 1993.
"Wake up, stone, gild the skies!
Our old bridge from ashes returns.
Neretva, river of green eyes, open them wide, stop!
This July day should be your holiday, starry balm on your wound.
Since Neretva flowed in ancient times, it has never been known
that man perishes, stone resurrects, and a heart beats in stone.
Start swimming, swan, flower long-necked, a playful wave escort you to its source.
0h, arise, stone, from dust return!
While you were falling we knew: from the dead you would rise!"
Home is the Sailor, Home from the Sea
The following poem was suggested by Ken Norris of England. He writes:
Recently I've been asked by various groups to talk to them about our travels. I entitle them "Traveller or Tourist?" and try to add humour by recounting the funny incidents which we seem to encounter on many of our journeys. People often ask how I developed my Wanderlust, and I tell them of two inspirational teachers and an author, all of whom I hold responsible.
The author is Robert Louis Stevenson, and we're off to pay my respects. After an obligatory stop over at LA (I'd promised to stay out of the USA until their Immigration Service treated us as friends rather than suspected terrorists), we fly to Raritonga and Aiutaki in the Cook Islands, then to Nadi in Fiji which we use as a base for triangular flights to Nuku'alofa in Tonga and onwards to Apia in Samoa, where we stay at Aggie Grey's hotel, (shades of James Mitchener). While there, we hope we shall be fit enough to walk up the local mountain to visit RLS's grave. This is the spot where his famous poem is inscribed on his headstone:
"Under the wide and starry sky, dig the grave and let me lie,
Glad did I live and gladly die, and I laid me down with a will.
This is the verse you grave for me, Here he lies where he longed to be.
Home is the sailor, home from the sea, and the hunter home from the hill."
It was RLS who inspired much of my interest in exploration, and who once commented to the effect "Give me a map and I'm a happy man", which is exactly my own experience.
The Men that Don't Fit In
Patricia Bird, an English motorhomer writes that she saw this quote from a poem by Robert W Service in a motorhome magazine and thinks that 'perhaps it fits us wanderers'. We are sure it does!
"There's a race of men that don't fit in, A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin, And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood, And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood, And they don't know how to rest.
If they just went straight they might go far; They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are, And they want the strange and new."
Irish Prayer
As a cyclist, Margaret particularly likes the second line.
"May the road rise to meet you
May the wind be always at your back
May the sun shine warm upon your face
The rains fall soft upon your fields and, until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand."
The Thin Place
From Ian Inglis, Balquhidder, Scotland.
"The old man looks out to the island. He says this place is endless thin
There's no real distance here to mention. We might all fall in, all fall in
No distance to the spirits of the living. No distance to the spirits of the dead
And as he turned his eyes were shining. And he proudly said
Feel so near to the howling of the wind. Feel so near to the crashing of the waves
Feel so near to the flowers in the field. Feel so near."
Rest up, Rest up
By Jenny Joseph and a favourite of Ian Inglis, Balquhidder, Scotland.
"Hang your hat on the peg Rest up, rest up
Fling your coat on the bed For you have travelled many miles to see me.
Put your feet on the bench Rest up, rest up
Heave of your heavy boots For you have come through winter days to see me.
Settle down by the fire Rest up, rest up
Lean back and smile at me For after all this time and travelling
Oh traveller, I'm glad to see you.
On Being Alive
Written by Keith Durham, Cuba 1998.
"No watch, no date, no days, only time . . . . time
To listen to tropical rain on tin roofs, to crickets, birdsong and bullfrogs
To talk to machete-wielding creole youngsters cutting down grass in rain gutters
To see armies of ants destroying trees in order to build their nests and fireflies lighting the way home
To feel the warmth of the people, the breeze, the sweat from tropical heat
To be reassured of man's innate goodness towards fellow man
To think. To dream. To be. To live."
Voyage to Greece
Oscar Wilde, Impression de Voyage.
"The sea was sapphire coloured, and the sky /Burned like a heated opal through the air;
We hoisted sail; the wind was blowing fair /For the blue lands that to the eastward lie.
From the steep prow I marked with quickening eye /Zakynthos, every olive grove and creek,
Ithaka's cliff, Lycaon's snowy peak /And all the flower-strewn hills of Arcady.
The flapping of the sail against the mast, /The ripple of the water on the side,
The ripple of girls' laughter at the stern /The only sounds - when 'gan the West to burn,
And a red sun upon the seas to ride. /I stood upon the soil of Greece at last!"
Chinese Poem
"Long, long must be our parting; I was not destined to tell you thoughts.
I stood on tiptoe gazing into the distance, Interminably gazing at the road that had taken you.
With thoughts of you my mind is obsessed; In my dreams I see the light of your face.
Now you are started on your long journey, Each day brings you further from me.
Oh, that I had a bird's wings And high flying could follow you."
Superstition
Algernon Swinburne.
"Souls there are that for soul's affright, Bow down and cower in the sun's glad sight
Clothed round with faith that is one with fear And dark with doubt of the live world's light."
Ithaka
Translated from C P Cavafy's Greek poem.
"As you set out for Ithaka hope your road is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery.
Pray that your journey may be long, That many may those summer months be,
When with what pleasure, what untold delight, You enter harbours never seen before.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind. Arriving there is what you're destined for.
But don't hurry the journey at all. Better if it lasts for years,
So you're old by the time you reach the island, wealthy with all you've gained on the way,
Not expecting Ithaka to make you rich. Ithaka gave you the marvellous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out. She has nothing left to give you now."
To His Coy Mistress
Andrew Marvell: like Barry, an old boy of Hull Grammar School!
"Had we but world enough, and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime. . . .
But at my back I always hear Time's wingéd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity . . .
The grave's a fine and private place, But none, I think, do there embrace.
Had we but world enough, and time This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way To walk, and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would Love you ten years before the flood
And you should, if you please, refuse Till the conversion of the Jews."
The Odyssey
Lewis Owen sent this touch of the Odyssey - it's the opening of Ezra Pound's first Pisan Canto.
"And then went down to the ship,
Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and
We set up mast and sail on that swart ship,
Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also
Heavy with weeping, so winds from sternward
Bore us out onward with bellying canvas,
Circe's this craft, the trim-coiffed goddess.
Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller,
Thus with stretched sail, we went over sea till day's end.
Sun to his slumber, shadows o'er all the ocean."
Spring Morning
Rev Murdoch and Dr Anne MacKenzie from Scotland sent this poem by their friend, Stephen Eric Smyth.
"Light as the touch of angel fingers the tiny weight of a blackbird
sheds an ancient branch of its snow.
At this harp string's pluck the whole forest quivers.
Together, we throw back our heads and pitch our song clearly
into creation's rising chorus."
Road Works
Written by Eve Williamson, Christmas 1995.
"Silently I climb the hills of my life, alone but not lonely, trying to find out who I am
Why I'm here on this particular track of the space/time continuum
And if there is a going back and a going forward, are they the same?
Perpetual revolution. The wheels turn and I turn. Everything changes yet I remain the same, trapped in the box I call 'me'
The labels and structures of my identity… Awareness and physical reality are so different. Inside the box I can dream
On the road, sensation gives purpose, contact. Something to do, somewhere to go People to meet
Where are they? All the people who love and care and understand? Do they know I'm here? Do they listen?
Are they inside or outside of me? To touch without contact,
To talk without conversation, To do without action: These are my fears. The wasteland of hope
Have I found what I'm looking for? Is it there all the time in the subliminal messages?
The feelings that won't go away? I need a response from someone other than me.
In my search for freedom I have stretched the meaning of loneliness to its limit
Am I just a rag doll tied to the wheel of life? Always the next journey
Never the coming home.