Journeys...?

Question

What do you think is the best poem on about journeys?

Answer 1

Here's one I wrote:

*****
Walker
TD Euwaite

I’m on a long
And lonesome journey
Far away, yet far to go
I can’t remember
How long I’ve traveled
I can’t turn round
I can’t go home

The things I’ve seen
The hands, I’ve shaken
Form a chain along the way
From Timor Sea to Oklahoma
Deep blue water
Into thin air

The time has come
For me, to ponder
Where I’ve been
Where I will go
Am I to lead
Am I to follow
Together all
Or all alone

*****

Answer 2

I will actually go with another Frost poem, "The Road Not Taken" about the decisions made on journeys albeit mostly metaphorical in this context, and how those decisions affect outcomes. Here's the poem:

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.

Answer 3

How about a poem about the ultimate journey, life until death? That's essentially the theme of Robert Frost's poem "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening." On the surface it seems like a simple poem, but throughout there are numerous tensions pulling at the speaker (as they do for all living people)--the demands of the real world, the contemplation of beauty, and the contemplation of one's own death.

Here is the link to Frost's poem with some literary analysis to follow. I'm not a big fan of Spark Notes or Cliffnotes, but as long as they work as a supplement to your own reading and not a substitute, the a.o.k.

http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/frost/section10.rhtml

Of course, if you're talking about epic journeys, you need look no further than Homer's famous "The Odyssey."

http://www.online-literature.com/homer/odyssey/

I don't really believe in naming the "best" poem, because such an opinion is subject to one's tastes and needs at any given time. But certainly one can have favorites.

Answer 4

There really is a web site for everything. The one below has poems about journies. Several hundred it appears.

My favorite, though very old (written in the 14th Century), is still Chaucer's " The Canterbury Tales" told by a collection of pilgrims on a pilgrimage from Southwark to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. Two of them are actually prose works but the rest are in verse. Try them some time. They are written in old English so it can be tough getting through them.

You can find them all on line. Just type Canterbury Tales in the browser and you will find many sites.

Answer 5

Sometimes less is more...

"If you pray for an uneventful journey
then you've missed the point of the trip"

Kevin Sorbello