A Place to Find Direction

Midnight On The Great Western

In the third-class seat sat the journeying boy,

And the roof-lamp's oily flame

Played down on his listless form and face,

Bewrapt past knowing to what he was going,

Or whence he came.

In the band of his hat the journeying boy

Had a ticket stuck; and a string

Around his neck bore the key of his box,

That twinkled gleams of the lamp's sad beams

Like a living thing.

What past can be yours, O journeying boy

Towards a world unknown,

Who calmly, as if incurious quite

On all at stake, can undertake

This plunge alone?

Knows your soul a sphere, O journeying boy,

Our rude realms far above,

Whence with spacious vision you mark and mete

This region of sin that you find you in,

But are not of?

-       Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

In this poem, Hardy uses the boy’s train ride as a metaphor for a universal theme: he asks several questions about life’s journey.  Perhaps the primary question is, “How much choice does any one of us have toward our own journey through life? Or are we predestined through a set journey ‘toward a world unknown’?”

Die Wetterfahne or Der Wegweiser? The Signpost at Merry Mount 

The Signpost

Translated from Müller’s original German by Richard Wigmore

Why do I avoid the roads

that other travellers take,

and seek hidden paths

over the rocky, snow-clad heights?

Yet I have done no wrong, 

that I should shun mankind. 

What foolish yearning

drives me into the wilderness?

Signposts stand on the roads, 

pointing towards the towns; 

and I wander on, relentlessly, 

restless, and yet seeking rest.

I see a signpost standing

immovable before my eyes;

I must travel a road

from which no man has ever returned.

I posit that we have signposts that guide us through life and at any given moment we may stop, contemplate our position, and change course.  We most often can get off the train.

Look up, Observe, and Make a Decision.

Safe journey,

CPW