The Open Road
THE roads of the Sea
Are thronged with merchantmen;
East and West, North and South
They go and come again.
All precious merchandise
They bear in their hold:
Lest the people be starving
In the night and cold.
Now tell me, good merchants,
How this thing can be
That the white ships are thronging
The roads of the sea?
For there's death in the skies
And there's death on the earth;
And men talked of famine
And a frozen hearth.
Yet the ships they go crowding
The roads of the sea;
They bring home their treasures
To you and to me.
O listen, good people,
And hearing, praise God,
That the watch-dogs are keeping
The ships on their road!
They sit watchful and steady
Where the North winds blow;
Sleepless they are keeping
The roads the ships go.
In the day, in the hour,
They will spring--until then,
Their eyes keep the courses
Of the merchantmen.
Forget not, good people,
When ye heap the white board,
When ye draw to the hearth-fire,
To praise the Lord,
That the watch-dogs unsleeping
Keep the roads of the Sea,
Up by the Northern Lights
Where the great ships be.
poem by Katharine Tynan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
All Roads Lead To You
Headed north on a one-way trip
I never thought Id be back this way
I never thought Id be missing you
Enough to suffer for the whole night through
Headed south and I didnt look back
I rode the wind off a beaten track
Tried running from the thought of you
Haunted down by what I know is true
To the north
To the south
It dont matter
Every road leads to you
(Im coming home)
Chorus:
All roads lead to you
Wherever I go
Everytime I told you I was just passing through
What my heart didnt know, was all roads lead to you
Headed east on an amtrak train
I hit the city in the pouring rain
I never thought Id be calling you
Every hour from that hotel room
Headed west on a jumbo jet
I rode off into the red sunset
I stood there knocking on the devils door
Wondering what the hell im searchin for
To the east
To the west
It dont matter
Every road leads to you
(Im coming home)
Chorus
All my life, the winding road Ive followed, has led me straight to your arms
All roads lead to you
(gotta get back to you, baby)
Wherever I go
(ah, yeah, yeah)
Everytime I told you I was just passing through
What my heart didnt know, was all roads lead to you
Im coming home to you , baby, oooooo
All roads lead to you
(Im coming home)
All roads lead to you
(never goin away again)
All roads lead to you
(ah, ha, yeah)
All roads lead to you
All roads lead to you
(gotta get back to you, woman)
All roads lead to you
All roads lead to you
All roads lead to you
song performed by by Chicago
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Messmates
He gave us all a good-bye cheerily
At the first dawn of day;
We dropped him down the side full drearily
When the light died away.
It's a dead dark watch that he's a-keeping there,
And a long, long night that lags a-creeping there,
Where the Trades and the tides roll over him
And the great ships go by.
He's there alone with green seas rocking him
For a thousand miles round;
He's there alone with dumb things mocking him,
And we're homeward bound.
It's a long, lone watch that he's a-keeping there,
And a dead cold night that lags a-creeping there,
While the months and the years roll over him
And the great ships go by.
I wonder if the tramps come near enough
As they thrash to and fro,
And the battle-ships' bells ring clear enough
To be heard down below;
If through all the lone watch that he's a-keeping there,
And the long, cold night that lags a-creeping there,
The voices of the sailor-men shall comfort him
When the great ships go by.
poem by Sir Henry Newbolt
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My Ships
If all the ships I have at sea
Should come a-sailing home to me,
From sunny lands, and lands of cold,
Ah well! the harbor could not hold
So many sails as there would be
If all my ships came in from sea.
If half my ships came home from sea,
And brought their precious freight to me,
Ah, well! I should have wealth as great
As any king who sits in state,
So rich the treasures that would be
In half my ships now at sea.
If just one ship I have at sea
Should come a-sailing home to me,
Ah well! the storm clouds then might frown,
For if the others all went down
Still rich and proud and glad I’d be,
If that one ship came back to me.
If that one ship were down at sea,
And all the others came to me,
Weighed down with gems and wealth untold,
With glory, honor, riches, gold,
The poorest soul on earth I’d be
If that one ship came not to me.
O skies be calm! O winds blow free--
Blow all my ships safe home to me.
But if thou sendest some awrack
To never more come sailing back,
Send any--all that skim the sea--
But bring my love-ship home to me.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Ships
(ian hunter)
We walked to the sea, just my father and me
And the dogs played around on the sand.
Winter cold cut the air, hanging still everywhere
Dressed in gray did he say hold my hand?
I said loves easier when its far away
We sat and watched the distant lights.
Were two ships that pass in the night
And we smile when we say its alright.
Were still here, its just that were out of sight
Like those ships that pass in the night.
Theres a boat on the line where the sea meets the sky.
Theres another that rides far behind.
And it seems you and I are like strangers a wide
Ways apart as we drift on through time.
He said its harder now youre far away
We only read you when you write.
Were two ships that pass in the night
We both smile when we say its alright.
Were still here, oh its just that were out of sight
Like those ships that pass in the night.
Were two ships that pass in the night
Were two ships that pass in the night
Were two ships that pass in the night
(repeat and fade)
song performed by by Ian Hunter
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Grey Lady Of The Sea
(lebon)
Youve whispered out loud
But your breeze doesnt bend
Were lying in the palm of your hand
No land we see, no place to be
The salt of your tears, adds stain to our hearts
Theres no long years can tear us apart
Our futures entwined with your past
Because when we lie awake
Well be thinking of you
Blow, grey lady blow your ships back home
Blow, grey lady blow your ships back home
Bravado is all but gone
And patience is down
You scared us and youve turned us around
But you wont let us drown
Because when we lie asleep
Well be dreaming of you
Blow, grey lady blow your ships back home
Blow, grey lady blow your ships back home
So answer us when we call
And say if you think were old
When life is so short we can stay long
But youll never be alone
Because one day well return
Well be waiting for you
Blow, grey lady blow your ships back home
Blow, grey lady blow your ships back home
Blow, grey lady blow your ships back home
Blow, grey lady blow your ships back home
Blow, grey lady blow your ships back home
song performed by by Duran Duran
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Loose Change
I built a house of cards
Built a house of rain
Built a house of love
Its hard to build again
Built a road to reason
Built a road to fate
Built a road to the promised land
Right up to the gate
Loose change in my pocket
Future in my hand
Too many distractions
For me to understand
Too many distractions
Got to get back home
Get into something solid
Get out of the zone
Some roads bring renewal
Some roads hide and wait
Some roads promise everything
And steal your fuel away
Loose change in my pocket
Future in my hand
Too many distractions
For me to understand
Some roads I been flyin
Some roads I crashed
Some roads I been sleepin on
Some roads I got back
Some roads I been runnin
Some roads I was stopped
Some roads I been walkin down
Some roads I was lost
song performed by by Neil Young
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Take Me Home, Country Roads
(bill danoff/taffy nivert/john denver)
Country roads,take me home
To the place I belong
West virginia,mountain mama
Take me home,country roads
Almost heaven,west virginia
Blue ridge mountain,shenandoe river
Life is old there,older than the trees
Younger than the mountains
Growing like the breeze
Country roads,take me home
To the place I belong
West virginia,mountain mama
Take me home,country roads
All my memories gather round her
Mine is lady,stranger to blue water
Dark and dusty painted on the sky
Misty taste of moonshine
Teardrop in my eye
Country roads,take me home
To the place I belong
West virginia,mountain mama
Take me home,country roads
I hear her voice in the morning
Now she calls me
The radio reminds me of my home far away
And driving down the road I get a feeling
That I shouldve been home yesterday,yesterday
Country roads,take me home
To the place I belong
West virginia,mountain mama
Take me home,country roads
Country roads,take me home
To the place I belong
West virginia,mountain mama
Take me home,country roads
Take me home,country roads
song performed by by Olivia Newton-John
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Ships
We walked to the sea
Just my father and me
And the dogs played around on the sand
Winter cold cut the air
Hangin still everywhere
Dressed in gray, did he say
Hold my hand
I said, loves easier when its far away
We sat and watched a distant light
Were two ships that pass in the night
We both smile and we say its alright
Were still here
Its just that were out of sight
Like those ships that pass in the night
Theres a boat on the line
Where the sea meets the sky
Theres another that rides far behind
And it seems you and I are like strangers
A wide ways apart as we drift on through time
He said, its harder now, were far away
We only read you when you write
Were two ships that pass in the night
And we smile when we say its alright
Were still here
Its just that were out of sight
Like those ships that pass in the night
Repeat
song performed by by Barry Manilow
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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World Called Earth
the ships flee the planet below
as the world rips itself apart
it, s death throes for all to see
the ships flee into space
speeding away from the
dying world behind them
as a world battled amongs
it, s self trying to keep hold
as land sank below ocean
blues
mountains topped from the sky
ground crumbled into depths
as cracks appeared in the earth
a world dying of old age
as ships get far enough away
bring engines to a stop
to watch this world collaspe
finally tear it, s self apart
this world called home
a world called earth
poem by Graham Russell
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Roads We Travel
There are many roads we travel
And probably most we leave behind
We continue to walk ahead of us
New fresh roads we want to find
And sometimes we wonder
If we took the best road we could
If we could erase them and start over
We often think perhaps we would
Some roads we travel often though
Off and on throughout the years
They get worn and sad and weary
And we shed so many tears
But we try to put them behind us
And trudge bravely on ahead
Trying very heard to not look back
But find great new roads instead
So no matter where we’ve been
As our lives we continue to unravel
We all just try to do our best
With the many roads we travel!
poem by Marilyn Lott
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Go To Zero
Hey, hey on your marks, get set go to zero
Present and correct go to zero
North, south, east and west go to zero
Nothing is best go to zero
I do this and I do that, and when its cold, I wear a hat,
Its mostly cold
It pays to advertise thay say, Ill keep my hat on anyway
Or so Im told
When youre on patrol go to zero
By remote control go to zero
Forward, pause, return go to zero
All roads lead astern go to zero
(chorus)
When you miss your cue go to zero
Start the dance, anew go to zero
Black, red, white and blue go to zero
When you lose the one go to zero
Rewind can be fun go to zero
Nudge it left and right go to zero
Dont wait til tonight go to zero
Go to zero!
(chorus)
(go to zero)
Everywhere you go go to zero
Nough is apropos go to zero
North, south, east and west go to zero
Nothing is best go to zero
song performed by by Duran Duran
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Country Roads
Almost heaven, west virginia
Blue ridge mountains, shenandoah river
Life is old there, older than the trees
Younger than the mountains, blowing like a breeze
Country roads, take me home
To the place, I be-long
West virginia, mountain momma
Take me home, country roads
All my memries, gather round her
Miners lady, stranger to blue water
Dark and dusty, painted on the sky
Misty taste of moonshine, teardrop in my eye
Country roads, take me home
To the place, I be-long
West virginia, mountain momma
Take me home, country roads
I hear her voice, in the mornin hours she calls to me
The radio reminds me of my home far a-way
And drivin down the road I get a feeling
That I should have been home yesterday, yesterday
Country roads, take me home
To the place, I be-long
West virginia, mountain momma
Take me home, country roads
song performed by by John Denver
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Merchandise
MERCHANDISE! Merchandise! Tortoiseshell, spices,
Carpets and Indigo sent o’er the highseas;
Mothero’Pearl from the Solomon Isles
Brought by a brigantine ten thousand miles.
Rubber from Zanzibar, tea from NangPo,
Copra from Haiti, and wine from Bordeaux;
Ships, with topgallants and royals unfurled,
Are bringing in freights from the ends of the world
Crazy old windjammers, manned by Malays,
With ratridden bulkheads and creaking old stays,
Reeking of bilge and of paint and of pitch
That’s how these oceangirt islands grew rich:
And tramps, heavy laden, and liners untold
Will lease a new life to a nation grown old.
Merchandise! Merchandise! England was made
By her Men and her Ships and her OVERSEAS TRADE.
Widen your harbours, your docks and your quays,
Hazard your wares on the seven wide seas,
Run out your railways and hew out your coal,
For only by trade can a country keep whole.
Feed up your furnaces, fashion your steel,
Stick to your bargains and pay on the deal;
Rich is your birthright, and well you’ll be paid.
If you keep in good faith with your Overseas Trade.
Learn up geography, work out your sums,
Build up your commerce, and pull down your slums;
Sail on a Plimsoll that marks a full hold:
Your Overseas Trade means a harvest of gold.
Bring in the palmoil and pepper you’ve bought,
But send out ten times the amount you import:
Trade your inventions, your labour and sweat:
Your Overseas Traffic will keep ye from debt.
Hark to the song of the shuttle and loom,
Keep up your commerce or crawl to your tomb
Study new methods and open new lines,
Quicken your factories, foundries and mines,
Think of what Drake did, and Raleigh and Howe
And waste not their labours by slacking it now:
Work is life’s currency earn what you’re worth,
And send out your ships to the ends of the earth.
Deepbosomed mothers with widefashioned hips
Will bear ye good sons for the building of ships
Good sons for your ships and good ships for your trade
That’s how the Peace of the World will be made!
So send out your strong to the forests untrod,
Work for yourselves and your neighbours and
Keep this good England the home of the free,
With Merchandise, Men and good Ships on the
Merchandise! Merchandise! Good honest Merchandise!
Merchandise, Men and Good Ships on the Sea.
------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ------
poem by John Milton Hayes
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Our Roads On Earth
Each trip commences with a step
We all have trips to make
We traverse different roads in life
As one goes up
Another goes down
Some go through long roads
Others have shorter paths to tread
Our daily trips are divine
As we journeyed towards life trips
Some roads are bumpy
Some are smooth
Some have stamina for marathon
Some move faster in a dash
Either long or short
Trials, challenges, obstacles
Are features to wrestle with on our roads
We need to be resilent
We need to damn odds
Whatever lane of the roads we are
Steadfastness is needed
Our trips on these roads
Shall end successfully
If we hold on to God..
poem by Babatunde Aremu
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Half Sleeping Birds II
My riding was on roads' margins;
arcane my path in dusk glory,
Some lost sea gulls knew my story,
peculiar listeners, burgeoned.
My soul's revolt deflects the pain,
was it one spell or more? In sea,
(half sleeping birds on a marquee) ,
conceived the crews and ships - again!
In distance ships that float bitter,
onto their trip of lone sorrows,
I reached the moors in half shadows,
three fates became my life's knitters.
They called reminding of my past,
their spell became a sky's thunder
my life won't be dead torn asunder,
because the ships' floating trip lasts.
My past's a track that draws away,
arcane the spells reversed inside;
did you invite my life to Hades,
and my road race of last Sunday?
poem by Giorgio Veneto
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Individuals
In the west we look to the east.
In the east we look to the west.
In the south we look to the north
and in the north we look to the south.
Wherever we are we look to the opposite
for the mystical sunshine
we see in others eyes.
That promise of plenty
everyone seems to have.
Each life is individual
to be lived the same way.
Each will have separate roads
along which to travel.
Each will find something
in what others have declined.
Each will find a path
to the heaven that they seek
as the individuals we are.
20 September 2010
poem by David Harris
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Song of the Torres Strait Islands
Bold Torres, the sailor, came and went,
with his swarthy, storm-worn band,
he saw Saavedra's Isle to north-
to south a loom of land.
He left unknowing his name would live
through ages with big fate,
as the first to stem with broad-bowed ship
the wash of the Northern Strait.
Round the western coast the Dutch ships crept,
seeking the hidden way;
some left their bones on that bare, west coast,
and the others sailed away.
Turned back, turned back, by reef and shoal,
twin guards of the narrow gate-
the path of the sun from the eastern seas-
they were mocked by the Northern Strait.
Year in, year out, the monsoons swept
o'er the isles of the coral shore,
The savage tossed in his frail canoe,
but the white man came no more.
No sail in sight at the flash of dawn!
No sail at the gloaming late!
Silent and still was the lonley pass-
Unsought was the Northern Strait.
A rattle of arms and a roll of drums,
and the meteor flag flies free,
as an English voice proclaims King George
Lord of the tropic sea.
The parrots scream as the volleys flash;
the gulls their haunts vacate;
and the 'south-east' fills the 'Endeavours' sails
as she heads through the Northern Strait.
And ever since then has our watch been kept
o'er the ships in the narrow way,
where the smoking funnels flare by night,
and the house-flags flaunt by day.
Ever the same strong south-east blows,
and ever we watch and wait,
the wardens we, in Australia's name,
the guard of the Northern Strait.
poem by Ernest Favenc
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Take Me Home, Country Roads
This song appears on twenty-one albums, and was first released on the poems, prayers and promises album. this version has also been released on the very best of john denver (double cd), this is
Denver, the country roads collection and the rocky mountain collection albums. it has been rerecorded on the greatest hits vol 1, take me home country roads & other hits, changes, favourites
Ce of america, john denver (italian) and country classics albums. it has been rerecorded again on the a portrait and the john denver collection - take me home, country roads albums, and again on
Love again and a celebration of life albums. live versions also appear on the an evening with john denver, live in london, live at the sydney opera house, the wildlife concert and the best of jo
Nver live albums.
Almost heaven, west virginia
Blue ridge mountains
Shenandoah river -
Life is old there
Older than the trees
Younger than the mountains
Growin like a breeze
Country roads, take me home
To the place I belong
West virginia, mountain momma
Take me home, country roads
All my memories gathered round her
Miners lady, stranger to blue water
Dark and dusty, painted on the sky
Misty taste of moonshine
Teardrops in my eye
Country roads, take me home
To the place I belong
West virginia, mountain momma
Take me home, country roads
I hear her voice
In the mornin hour she calls me
The radio reminds me of my home far away
And drivin down the road I get a feelin
That I should have been home yesterday, yesterday
Country roads, take me home
To the place I belong
West virginia, mountain momma
Take me home, country roads
Country roads, take me home
To the place I belong
West virginia, mountain momma
Take me home, country roads
Take me home, now country roads
Take me home, now country roads
Words and music by bill danoff, taffy nivert and john denver
song performed by by John Denver
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Roadways
Roads are making sense to the citizenry,
Can they travel long distances?
Can thoughts enter a ghastly mind
Which melts under the sun, in the brain?
Roads will enthuse the community at large
And affect their moods and climate of opinion.
Shall we certainly reject the injured?
They, the leprosy, are against roads.
But we are the fit to celebrate the country
By going to it, by managing safety on the roads.
Each road is greatly admired and minds are helped
By the heat of the sun and all it emits.
poem by Naveed Akram
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Half sleeping birds
I should be driving over roads' margins;
arcane path in dim light; I rode in glory,
the flying sea gulls cared for my story,
and a peculiar writers' group to burgeon.
Inside me was a bellow, earth trembling,
was it a roar or many? In a stormy sea,
(half sleeping birds stood on a marquee) ,
both ships and humans were dissembling!
In the horizon the ships floated bitter,
onto their trip of sempiternal sorrows,
as I reached the moors in half shadows,
the three fates were my life's knitters.
It echoed reminding of my days of past,
it was the roar inside me like a thunder
my inner entity won't be torn asunder,
while the ships' travel to infinity lasts.
My past became a drive that draws away,
arcane memories reversed to my insides,
your invitation to an uninhabited Hades,
torn companionship was, sweet of Sunday.
poem by Giorgio Veneto
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