Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Path

                               "Adversity is the first path to Truth"---Lord Byron

Source

"A straight path never leads anywhere except to the objective."---André Gide

"End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path. One that we all must take."---J.R.R. Tolkien 

"Real music is not for wealth, not for honors or even the joys of the mind.....but as a path for realization and salvation."---Ali Akbar Khan

                                                  Midweek Motif ~ Path

A path is a way marked out for people to walk and a way of life too.  It may be long, short, straight, winding steeply upwards or without any destination. Only we have to be careful about choosing the right one for us.

To quote Ralph Waldo Emerson: Do not go where the path may lead go instead where there is no path and leave a trail…….

Sometimes we are happy to walk on familiar paths and on other times we prefer diversion. We believe in small steps as well as in giant leaps.

So....let's begin our walk:

                   The Road Not Taken

                     

                       by Robert Frost

         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.  

        The Path That Leads Nowhere

       by Corinne Roosevelt Robinson

   THERE'S a path that leads to Nowhere 
        In a meadow that I know, 
    Where an inland island rises 
        And the stream is still and slow; 
    There it wanders under willows, 
        And beneath the silver green 
    Of the birches' silent shadows 
        Where the early violets lean.

    Other pathways lead to Somewhere, 
        But the one I love so well 
    Has no end and no beginning— 
        Just the beauty of the dell, 
    Just the wind-flowers and the lilies 
        Yellow-striped as adder's tongue, 
    Seem to satisfy my pathway 
        As it winds their scents among.

    There I go to meet the Springtime, 
        When the meadow is aglow, 
    Marigolds amid the marshes,— 
        And the stream is still and slow. 
    There I find my fair oasis, 
        And with care-free feet I tread 
    For the pathway leads to Nowhere, 
        And the blue is overhead!

    All the ways that lead to Somewhere 
        Echo with the hurrying feet 
    Of the Struggling and the Striving, 
        But the way I find so sweet 
    Bids me dream and bids me linger, 
        Joy and Beauty are its goal,— 
    On the path that leads to Nowhere 
        I have sometimes found my soul!

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                        (Next week Susan's Midweek Motif will be ~ Invisibility)