Roads + 

I love roads: + 

The goddesses that dwell + 

Far along invisible + 

Are my favourite gods. + 

Roads go on + 

While we forget, and are + 

Forgotten like a star + 

That shoots and is gone. + 

On this earth ’tis sure + 

We men have not made + 

Anything that doth fade + 

So soon, so long endure: + 

The hill road wet with rain + 

In the sun would not gleam + 

Like a winding stream + 

If we trod it not again. + 

They are lonely + 

While we sleep, lonelier + 

For lack of the traveller + 

Who is now a dream only. + 

From dawn’s twilight + 

And all the clouds like sheep + 

On the mountains of sleep + 

They wind into the night. + 

The next turn may reveal + 

Heaven: upon the crest + 

The close pine clump, at rest + 

And black, may Hell conceal. + 

Often footsore, never + 

Yet of the road I weary, + 

Though long and steep and dreary + 

As it winds on for ever. + 

Helen of the roads, + 

The mountain ways of Wales + 

And the Mabinogion tales, + 

Is one of the true gods, + 

Abiding in the trees, + 

The threes and fours so wise, + 

The larger companies, + 

That by the roadside be, + 

And beneath the rafter + 

Else uninhabited + 

Excepting by the dead; + 

And it is her laughter + 

At morn and night I hear + 

When the thrush cock sings + 

Bright irrelevant things, + 

And when the chanticleer + 

Calls back to their own night + 

Troops that make loneliness + 

With their light footsteps’ press, + 

As Helen’s own are light. + 

Now all roads lead to France + 

And heavy is the tread + 

Of the living; but the dead + 

Returning lightly dance: + 

Whatever the road bring + 

To me or take from me, + 

They keep me company + 

With their pattering, + 

Crowding the solitude + 

Of the loops over the downs, + 

Hushing the roar of towns + 

And their brief multitude. + 