[Editor: This poem by Marie E. J. Pitt was published in The Horses of the Hills and Other Verses (1911).]
Ballade of the Road.
Between the living and the dead,
Our waking and our sleep between,
A ribbon, dark with hues of dread,
That links the hidden with the seen,
The Road winds on through Might Have Been,
By gladsome glades of Gone Before,
Through dream and doom, by shade and sheen,
For evermore — for evermore!
And, leaden heart or drooping head,
By rolling dune, by runnelled dene,
Still onward sweep the legions, led
By Judas or by Nazarene;
And Folly blears, with blots unclean,
The rainbow raiment Beauty wore,
And Fancy mourns her exiled queen
For evermore — for evermore!
The spilt wine flashes rosy red;
But pale, pale are their lips, I ween,
Who break with Dearth her bitter bread,
And drink with Loss her vintage lean;
Their sighs are sadder than the keen
Of night winds on a reedy shore,
Where widowed Griefs grey children glean
For evermore — for evermore!
Sahara stark, savanna green,
Though life be cankered to the core,
The Road winds on through Fate’s demesne
For evermore — for evermore!
Source:
Marie E. J. Pitt, The Horses of the Hills and Other Verses, Melbourne: Specialty Press, 1911, page 15
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