54947: Roads

<p dir="ltr"> I love roads:<br> The goddesses that dwell<br> Far along invisible<br> Are my favourite gods.<br> Roads go on<br> While we forget, and are<br> Forgotten like a star<br> That shoots and is gone.<br> On this earth 'tis sure<br> We men have not made<br> Anything that doth fade<br> So soon, so long endure:<br> The hill road wet with rain<br> In the sun would not gleam<br> Like a winding stream<br> If we trod it not again.<br> They are lonely<br> While we sleep, lonelier<br> For lack of the traveller<br> Who is now a dream only.<br> From dawn's twilight<br> And all the clouds like sheep<br> On the mountains of sleep<br> They wind into the night.<br> The next turn may reveal<br> Heaven: upon the crest<br> The close pine clump, at rest<br> And black, may Hell conceal.<br> Often footsore, never<br> Yet of the road I weary,<br> Though long and steep and dreary,<br> As it winds on for ever.<br> Helen of the roads,<br> The mountain ways of Wales<br> And the Mabinogion tales<br> Is one of the true gods,<br> Abiding in the trees,<br> The threes and fours so wise,<br> The larger companies,<br> That by the roadside be,<br> And beneath the rafter<br> Else uninhabited<br> Excepting by the dead;<br> And it is her laughter<br> At morn and night I hear<br> When the thrush cock sings<br> Bright irrelevant things,<br> And when the chanticleer<br> Calls back to their own night<br> Troops that make loneliness<br> With their light footsteps' press,<br> As Helen's own are light.<br> Now all roads lead to France<br> And heavy is the tread<br> Of the living; but the dead<br> Returning lightly dance:<br> Whatever the road bring<br> To me or take from me,<br> They keep me company<br> With their pattering.<br> Crowding the solitude<br> Of the loops over the downs,<br> Hushing the roar of towns<br> And their brief multitude.<br></p>