Pilgrims

[patrickj.dumas45]

We are the Pigrims, master, we shall go
Always a little further: it may be
Beyond the last blue mountain, barred with snow.
Across that angry or that glimmering sea,
While on a throne or guarded in a cave
There lies a prophet who can understand
Why men were born: but surely we are brave
Who take the Golden Road to Samarkand"

From "The Golden Road to Samarkand" Scene 11, James Elroy Flecker.

De colores

Bogong

 

[scruffy1]

We are the Pigrims, master, we shall go
Always a little further: it may be
Beyond the last blue mountain, barred with snow.
Across that angry or that glimmering sea,
While on a throne or guarded in a cave
There lies a prophet who can understand
Why men were born: but surely we are brave
Who take the Golden Road to Samarkand"

From "The Golden Road to Samarkand" Scene 11, James Elroy Flecker.

De colores

Bogong

Whoa Nellie! That's a bit bombastic, instead try:
When in April the sweet showers fall
And pierce the drought of March to the root, and all
The veins are bathed in liquor of such power
As brings about the engendering of the flower,
When also Zephyrus with his sweet breath
Exhales an air in every grove and heath
Upon the tender shoots, and the young sun
His half-course in the sign of the
Ram
has run,
And the small fowl are making melody
That sleep away the night with open eye
(So nature pricks them and their heart engages)
Then people long to go on pilgrimages
And palmers long to seek the stranger strands
Of far-off saints, hallowed in sundry lands,
And specially, from every shire’s end
Of England, down to Canterbury they wend
To seek the holy blissful martyr, quick
To give his help to them when they were sick

I don't really have to give the source, we should all know-for those who don't Cantabury Tales, Prologue 1390 +-

 

[Former member 49149]

As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbours seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvellous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
CP Cavafy