wanderlust {words by Robert Service}

Photograph taken by the side of the historic Old Stage Road in Jackson County, Oregon, February 28, 2015

Have you ever heard of the Land of Beyond,

   That dream at the gates of the day?

Alluring it lies at the skirts of the skies,

   And ever so far away;

Alluring it calls: O ye yoke of galls,

   And ye of the trails overfond,

With saddle and pack, by paddle and track,

   Let’s go to the Land of Beyond!

Have ever you stood where the silences brood,

   And vast the horizons begin,

At the dawn of the day to behold far away

   The goal you would strive for and win?

Yet ah! in the night when you gain to the height,

   With the vast pool of heaven star-spawned,

Afar and agleam, like a valley of dream,

   Still mocks you the Land of Beyond.

Thank God! there is always the Land of Beyond

   For us who are true to the trail;

A vision to seek, a beckoning peak,

   A fairness that never will fail;

A proud in our soul that mocks at a goal,

   A manhood that irks at a bond,

And try how we will, unattainable still,

   Behold it, our Land of Beyond!

                           ~ The Land of Beyond, Robert Service 

With gratitude,

Joanna