The land is rich,
with many valleys hidden,
and mountain peaks forlorn.
There are plains of green grasses,
and lakes deep with water blue.
The paths I walk go to these.
Though in this short time of life,
I cannot see all of the lands there be.
To walk all the paths,
and climb the hills so many.
Up on the peaks forlorn,
(though they stand with others,
they are so far apart,
and each so different,
to truly be forlorn.)
I have climbed,
that there more land will lay at my feet,
land wide and going on so far,
in them are many things I see not from so high,
I know though.
That upon the land I see,
winding between trees and across streams,
are the paths I walk.
As I try this land to know.
On some paths many go along,
and these are worn wide,
going with the easy path,
knowing no hardships,
and those on these see little,
learning not to be hard with hardship,
thus knowing not to be easy with the gentle.
And some paths,
light and narrow,
hard for the careless eye to see,
followed by a few are well kept by the land,
wander freely across the land.
starting somewhere lost,
going where the free go.
Some are easy to walk,
some are with rocks and fallen tree.
And too many hard to walk,
yet some walk there,
and so the path is.
Some are good and others bad.
And many are both and neither still.
Some on which rock and fallen tree are,
where to go along is slow and hard,
are good.
Some which are smooth and straight,
going quick to the end,
are bad.
And either can be the other.
And of some no one can say.
Of them many I have walked.
And of many more I know that I have not.
Some of them I know well,
many more things I want to learn,
on the ones I know.
I walk often,
and with each time along one I walk,
somewhere along it there is something,
something I've passed by before,
I will see and it will then be with me,
in my mind to know forever,
and in that I will be richer,
{though not in gold,
richer still.}
Some perhaps I will walk but once,
and to see some of where they go,
once to find that which on them lay.
And although how hard I try,
{and the effort of a man can be great}
there is some I will never see or know,
they go to where I will never be,
they show much, which is good,
they would lead to a better me.
And knowing this,
I will walk the paths,
that this short time of life will let me see.
And I will walks the paths,
as long as I will be.