Please, do not follow.
This path isn’t for you.
This place of quiet,
Stillful solitude.
Please, Do not follow.
The path is difficult,
lost in itself,
winding
in, winding
out, winding
back and
again.
Please, Do not Follow.
There lies a beast
in this dark wood
that consumes one’s fear
leaving only
the unafraid.
Please, Do Not Follow!
The way is vicious,
Swift as Death,
It will cleave the soul,
Leaving only the bones
Of self-knowledge.
However,
If you do follow,
Do not turn back,
Do not linger,
Follow in,
Follow through,
Follow back,
Again.
When you think
you’ve arrived,
Face yourself,
and finally be
reborn.
I like this poem.. I really like the part in the third stanza.. ” There lies a beast
in this dark wood.”
Thanks for the follow. And yes, there lies the beast. There is light and darkness in us all. We are both the angels and demons people imagine. With maturity, comes the ability to define ourselves, and not let the image of others form who we are. Darkness is like the snake eating its tail, consuming itself into darkness. All light can become boring to most. For this, there are grays everywhere.
Here’s one for you:
“Invictus”
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever Gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning’s of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
By William Ernest Henley
English Poet – (1849 to 1903)
I love Invictus. I came across it when it was mentioned in a news article about either Timothy McVeigh or Terry Nichols. Nichols, I think, because he was executed here in Indiana. It is a very powerful poem.