Where-Away
O the Lands of Where-Away!
Tell us--tell us--where are they?
Through the darkness and the dawn
We have journeyed on and on--
From the cradle to the cross--
From possession unto loss,--
Seeking still, from day to day,
For the lands of Where-Away.
When our baby-feet were first
Planted where the daisies burst,
And the greenest grasses grew
In the fields we wandered through,
On, with childish discontent,
Ever on and on we went,
Hoping still to pass, some day,
O'er the verge of Where-Away.
Roses laid their velvet lips
On our own, with fragrant sips;
But their kisses held us not,
All their sweetness we forgot;--
Though the brambles in our track
Plucked at us to hold us back--
'Just ahead,' we used to say,
'Lie the Lands of Where-Away.'
Children at the pasture-bars,
Through the dusk, like glimmering stars,
Waved their hands that we should bide
With them over eventide:
Down the dark their voices failed
Falteringly, as they hailed,
And died into yesterday--
Night ahead and--Where-Away?
Twining arms about us thrown--
Warm caresses, all our own,
Can but stay us for a spell--
Love hath little new to tell
To the soul in need supreme,
Aching ever with the dream
Of the endless bliss it may
Find in Lands of Where-Away!
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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Related quotes
Peace Everywhere
Peace, everywhere, peace today!
Peace in lands of scruffy trees and pine,
Peace in lands of olives and wine,
Peace in lands where peaks are white,
Peace in lands where fields are bright.
Peace in lands of oasis and sand,
Peace in lands where people band,
Peace in lands where children play,
Peace in lands where people pray,
Peace in lands in the thick of the fight,
Peace in lands ruled by force and might.
Everywhere, everywhere, peace this day!
Pray that all world leaders lead the way,
Encouraging moral people to stand proud and tall,
No government too great, no nation too small.
poem by Joseph T. Renaldi
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Lightnin Hopkins
When I lay myself to sleep pray that I dont go too deep
Lightnin won lightnin won
Because its cold down gold down there, crow!
Flat lands low lands on the track
Shows the water pan the track
Lightnin won lightnin won
Close up hands to silhouette, crow!
Lightnin won, lightnin won
Hound bark on the track
Hound crow hold onto your hat
Lightnin won lightnin won
Low lands timberlands bad lands bird lands
song performed by by REM
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Ferry Across The Mersey
Life goes on day after day after day after day.
Hearts torn in every way,
So ferry cross the Mersey, Cos this lands the place I love and here I'll stay,
And here I'll stay.
People they rush every where, Each with their own secret care,
So ferry cross the Mersey, Cos this lands the place I love and here I'll stay,
And here I'll stay
People around every corner, they seem to smile and say, they'll tell you!
We don't care what you name is boy, We'll never send you away,
Send you away, Send you away, Send you away
So I'll continue to say here's where I always must stay,
So ferry cross the Mersey, Cos this lands the place I love,
Ferry cross the Mersey, Cos this lands the place I love and here I'll stay.
and here I'll Stay, stay, stay,
Ferry cross the Mersey, Cos this lands the place I love.
Ferry cross the Mersey, Cos this lands the place I love.
Ferry cross the Mersey, Cos this lands the place I love.
song performed by by Frankie Goes To Hollywood
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Dawn
The immortal spirit hath no bars
To circumscribe its dwelling place;
My soul hath pastured with the stars
Upon the meadow-lands of space.
My mind and ear at times have caught,
From realms beyond our mortal reach,
The utterance of Eternal Thought
Of which all nature is the speech.
And high above the seas and lands,
On peaks just tipped with morning light,
My dauntless spirit mutely stands
With eagle wings outspread for flight.
poem by Frederick George Scott
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Story Of Grumble Tone
There was a boy named Grumble Tone, who ran away to sea.
'I'm sick of things on land,' he said, 'as sick as I can be,
A life upon the bounding wave is just the life for me!'
But the seething ocean billows failed to stimulate his mirth,
For he did not like the vessel or the dizzy rolling berth,
And he thought the sea was almost as unpleasant as the earth.
He wandered into foreign lands, he saw each wondrous sight,
But nothing that he heard or saw seemed just exactly right,
And so he journeyed on and on, still seeking for delight.
He talked with kings and ladies grand; he dined in courts, they say,
But always found the people dull and longed to get away
To search for that mysterious land where he should want to stay.
He wandered over all the world, his hair grew white as snow,
He reached that final bourne at last where all of us must go,
But never found the land he sought; the reason would you know?
The reason was that north or south, where'er his steps were bent,
On land or sea, in court or hall, he found but discontent,
For he took his disposition with him, everywhere he went.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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The Song Of Wandering Aengus
I WENT out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire aflame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands.
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
poem by William Butler Yeats
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Blue Roses
Roses red and roses white
Plucked I for my love's delight.
She would none of all my posies--
Bade me gather her blue roses.
Half the world I wandered through,
Seeking where such flowers grew.
Half the world unto my quest
Answered me with laugh and jest.
Home I came at wintertide,
But my silly love had died
Seeking with her latest breath
Roses from the arms of Death.
It may be beyond the grave
She shall find what she would have.
Mine was but an idle quest--
Roses white and red are best!
poem by Rudyard Kipling
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The Secretary - Bird
Out of the air it lands
with wings flapping
before the snake can stop it.
Out of the air it lands
strikes deadly at the poisonous adder
with a razor sharp beak that injures,
out of the air it lands
with wings flapping.
poem by Gert Strydom
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A Prayer
Since that I may not have
Love on this side the grave,
Let me imagine Love.
Since not mine is the bliss
Of 'claspt hands and lips that kiss,'
Let me in dreams it prove.
What tho' as the years roll
No soul shall melt to my soul,
Let me conceive such thing;
Tho' never shall entwine
Loving arms around mine
Let dreams caresses bring.
To live--it is my doom--
Lonely as in a tomb,
This cross on me was laid;
My God, I know not why;
Here in the dark I lie,
Lonely, yet not afraid.
It has seemed good to Thee
Still to withhold the key
Which opes the way to men;
I am shut in alone,
I make not any moan,
Thy ways are past my ken.
Yet grant me this, to find
The sweetness in my mind
Which I must still forego;
Great God which art above,
Grant me to image Love,--
The bliss without the woe.
Dream
I had a dream
I was standing on a mountain,
The world at my feet.
I was the Lord, almighty.
I had a dream
I was loved and hated
People´s idol, children´s mother.
I had a dream
I did something wrong,
The people rebelled,
The children cried.
I had a dream
And within my dream, I died again.
My body was burned,
Scattered in the wind.
My soul ligers on
in the lands of my dream,
Until I die,
Or learn to fly.
poem by Anne Harkonen
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Lands II
I was riding the track to your mother’s lands
And the donkey was growing tired
I came to a camp by the falling day
And sat by the fireside
The black pot was cooking between the smoke
And the men were collecting wood
The split of the branches called into the night
As the women bent over the food
I asked what it was they stirred in the pot
That drew the little dogs so near
The meat was left over from a wedding feast
The corn was brought in by the bride that year
They said, our daughters have left the land
Our children are scarcer than rain
The youngest is married to an Englishman
(And that life seemed so near again)
The lands were empty when I came next day
Your boy and your brother were gone
I drank from the gourds and lit the lamp
And waited for you and the dawn
I woke to the sound of a 4-wheel drive
Pulling a harvester along the track
So I took to the donkey and left you a note
Wondering if we would ever come back.
poem by Frank Bana
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Straight Ahead
Day by day, dream by dream.
I fight to find the way to go.
Every day opens a different door.
Every dream shadows the one before.
But slowly I can see
The way youve made for me.
Straight ahead, I can see your light.
Straight ahead, through the dark.
Straight ahead, theres no left or right.
Straight ahead, to your heart.
Carry on through the night,
When the road is hard to find.
Lying lights tell me to turn around.
Lying thoughts tell me Im lost not found.
But clearly I can see
Youre waiting there for me.
Straight ahead, I can see your light.
Straight ahead, through the dark.
Straight ahead, theres no left or right.
Straight ahead, to your heart.
Straight ahead, (straight ahead),
Straight ahead, (straight ahead),
Straight ahead, (straight ahead),
Straight ahead, (straight ahead).
Straight ahead (straight ahead), I can see your light.
Straight ahead, through the dark (through the dark).
Straight ahead, theres no left or right.
Straight ahead, to your heart.
Straight ahead....
song performed by by Amy Grant
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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On Seeing An Infant's Photograph
what enchanting lands
are let loose behind
those eyes?
the smile tells me
several stories of
those far away lands
that have been
so much part of your world, now
my first lesson to you, my love
lose not that smile
filling your world and mine
with bliss unbound
come what may
my second lesson to you, my love
when stress and strain
wears you down
close those eyes
just as you do now
even for a wink
to revisit those lands
of your blissful infancy
for revival and rejuvination...
*a wonderful photograph with a unique smile on the infant's face... Thomas Horton's 'First Lesson'
21sep2009
07.35hrs
poem by Indira Babbellapati
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Tainted Wings
On wings of silver and gold, I soar
across the field of many lands
seeking out the love
I once held in my hands.
Like a newborn butterfly,
stretching its wings to fly
my love stretched her wings
and flew far away.
Now with newborn freedom
I to take to the sky and fly
searching for the love
I once held in my hand.
Above tempest and raging seas,
I search for her everywhere
hoping one day I’ll find
my angel with tainted wings.
17 October 2009
poem by David Harris
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Orchard Lands Of Long Ago
The orchard lands of Long Ago!
O drowsy winds, awake, and blow
The snowy blossoms back to me,
And all the buds that used to be!
Blow back along the grassy ways
Of truant feet, and lift the haze
Of happy summer from the trees
That trail their tresses in the seas
Of grain that float and overflow
The orchard lands of Long Ago!
Blow back the melody that slips
In lazy laughter from the lips
That marvel much if any kiss
Is sweeter than the apple's is.
Blow back the twitter of the birds--
The lisp, the titter, and the words
Of merriment that found the shine
Of summer-time a glorious wine
That drenched the leaves that loved it so,
In orchard lands of Long Ago!
O memory! alight and sing
Where rosy-bellied pippins cling,
And golden russets glint and gleam,
As, in the old Arabian dream,
The fruits of that enchanted tree
The glad Aladdin robbed for me!
And, drowsy winds, awake and fan
My blood as when it overran
A heart ripe as the apples grow
In orchard lands of Long Ago!
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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Our Daily Bread
We need no barbarous words nor solemn spell
To raise the unknown. It lies before our feet;
There have been men who sank down into Hell
In some suburban street,
And some there are that in their daily walks
Have met archangels fresh from sight of God,
Or watched how in their beans and cabbage-stalks
Long files of faerie trod.
Often me too the Living voices call
In many a vulgar and habitual place,
I catch a sight of lands beyond the wall,
I see a strange god’s face.
And some day this work will work upon me so
I shall arise and leave both friends and home
And over many lands a pilgrim go
Through alien woods and foam,
Seeking the last steep edges of the earth
Whence I may leap into that gulf of light
Wherein, before my narrowing Self had birth,
Part of me lived aright.
poem by Clive Staples Lewis
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Dreams
There is naught in the pathless reach
Of the pale, blue sky above,
There is naught that the stars tell, each to each,
As over the heavens they rove;
That I have not felt, or have not seen
Clad in dull earth or fancy's sheen.
There is naught, in the still, mauve twilight
When the dreams come flitting by,
From lands afar of eternal night,
Or lands of the sunswept sky,
For countless spirits within me dwell
With heaven's efflugence or dark hell.
poem by Joseph Seamon Cotter
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Foreign Lands
You may roam the wide seas over, follow, meet, and cross the sun,
Sail as far as ships can sail, and travel far as trains can run;
You may ride and tramp wherever range or plain or sea expands,
But the crowd has been before you, and you’ll not find ‘Foreign Lands;’
For the Early Days are over,
And no more the white-winged rover
Sinks the gale-worn coast of England bound for bays in Foreign Lands.
Foreign Lands are in the distance dim and dreamlike, faint and far,
Long ago, and over yonder, where our boyhood fancies are,
For the land is by the railway cramped as though with iron bands,
And the steamship and the cable did away with Foreign Lands.
Ah! the days of blue and gold!
When the news was six months old—
But the news was worth the telling in the days of Foreign Lands.
Here we slave the dull years hopeless for the sake of Wool and Wheat
Here the homes of ugly Commerce—niggard farm and haggard street;
Yet our mothers and our fathers won the life the heart demands—
Less than fifty years gone over, we were born in Foreign Lands.
When the gipsies stole the children still, in village tale and song,
And the world was wide to travel, and the roving spirit strong;
When they dreamed of South Sea Islands, summer seas and coral strands—
Then the bravest hearts of England sailed away to Foreign Lands,
‘Fitting foreign’—flood and field—
Half the world and orders sealed—
And the first and best of Europe went to fight in Foreign Lands.
Canvas towers on the ocean—homeward bound and outward bound—
Glint of topsails over islands—splash of anchors in the sound;
Then they landed in the forests, took their strong lives in their hands,
And they fought and toiled and conquered—making homes in Foreign Lands,
Through the cold and through the drought—
Further on and further out—
Winning half the world for England in the wilds of Foreign Lands.
Love and pride of life inspired them when the simple village hearts
Followed Master Will and Harry—gone abroad to ‘furrin parts’
By our townships and our cities, and across the desert sands
Are the graves of those who fought and died for us in Foreign Lands—
Gave their young lives for our sake
(Was it all a grand mistake?)
Sons of Master Will and Harry born abroad in Foreign Lands!
Ah, my girl, our lives are narrow, and in sordid days like these,
I can hate the things that banished ‘Foreign Lands across the seas,’
But with all the world before us, God above us—hearts and hands,
I can sail the seas in fancy far away to Foreign Lands.
poem by Henry Lawson
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Over My Shoulder
Shut your mouth, and watch my lips,
Can you feel her healing finger tips,
Coming down, on you like rain,
So tell me now where do we remain,
Over my shoulder it goes,
and where it lands, you don't want to know
I used to work, night and day,
Nobody listened to a word I'd say,
I didn't care who knew me then,
and someone stupid asked if we were friends, well,
Over my shoulder it goes,
Back to a bar, we both used to know.
Shut your mouth, and watch my lips,
Can you feel her healing finger tips,
Coming down, on you like rain,
Tell me now where do we remain,
Over my shoulder it goes,
and where it lands, you don't want to know
Over my shoulder it goes,
and where it lands, you don't want to know
song performed by by I Am Kloot
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Mother Dawn
Hold me, hold me
Breathe the light into me
Hold me, hold me
Mother dawn
Mother dawn
Dancing round the fire
Circling the flame
Listen to the shadows calling out my name
They say
Rock me like a baby
Cradle me in the light
Bathe me in a rainbow
Sun restore my sight
Hold me, hold me
Breathe the light into me
Hold me, hold me
Mother dawn (all night long yeah)
Hold me, hold me
Breathe the light into me (all night long yeah)
Hold me, hold me
Mother dawn
Look into the light
Come and take a journey through the land of night
Darkness strokes the face and
Steals away the sight
Night is all around me
Stars are in my hair
I feel them tangled in the secrets well
Find hidden there all right
Reaching through the madness
To the other side
Where the sun is rising
With her arms held wide
Hold me, hold me
Breathe the light into me
Hold me, hold me
Mother dawn (all night long yeah)
(till the dawn light comes)
Hold me, hold me
Breathe the light into me (all night long yeah)
Hold me, hold me
Mother dawn (all night long)
(I know youre gonna love me)
(I know youre gonna love me)
One star flew against the tapestry of the night
And the earth revolved in perfect symmetry
To a symphony of sun
The moon danced its final bow
As the birth of day
Exploded
In my eyes
Reaching through the madness
To the other side
Where the sun is rising
With her arms held wide
Rock me like a baby
Cradle me in light
Youre gonna bathe me in a rainbow
And the sun restore my sight
Hold me, hold me
Breathe the light into me
Hold me, hold me
Mother dawn
Hold me, hold me (all night long yeah)
Breathe the light into me
(till the dawn light comes yeah)
Hold me, hold me (all night long yeah)
Mother dawn (I know youre gonna love me yeah)
I know youre
Gonna love me
All night long yeah
Till the dawn light comes
All night long yeah
I know youre gonna love me love me
All night long yeah
Till the dawn light comes
All night long yeah
I know youre gonna love me love me
Mother dawn
song performed by by Billy Idol
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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