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Anna Livia Plurabelle
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The Road Without Daffodils
(Or, How Wordsworth Narrowly Escaped Being Conscripted into War by Hiding in a Cave)
I wandered lonely as a cloud
while Alph the sacred river ran.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
down from the door where it began.
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
and under mountains of the moon
that floats on high o'er vales and hills
two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less travelled by.
And I must follow if I can,
along the margin of a bay,
through caverns measureless to man.
And whither then? I cannot say
a host of golden daffodils,
yet knowing how way leads onto way.
And here were forests ancient as the hills.
For oft when on my couch I lie,
my evening rest and sleep to meet,
I would build that dome in air,
pursuing it with eager feet,
fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Oh, I marked the first for another day
enfolding sunny spots of greenery
until it joins some other way—
When all at once I saw a crowd,
ancestral voices prophesying war!
I doubted if I should ever come back,
turn at last to home afar.
I shall be telling this with a sigh,
and all should cry, Beware! Beware!
They stretched in never-ending line,
under cloud and under star,
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
but I at last with weary feet
then reached the caverns measureless to man—
and THAT has made all the difference.
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