Pretty Fair Maid In A Garden

Take This Tune this week is all about love returning. Fairweather threw me a bit of a curve with the selected song and write up as she sent ye olde brain in three different directions:  Classic Literature, true Love, and erotic poetry.  Rather than go for any phantom lovers returning or myths of various kinds, I'm opting for both sensual and true love.

One of my favorite bits of sensuousness comes from a somewhat unexpected place:  Robert Frost.  It is easy to think of him as old and grizzled with the chill of snows in New England, but I suspect Bobby may have had a past of doing more interesting things out of doors than building walls or driving horses.

I crave the stain
of tears, the aftermark
of almost too much love,
The sweet of bitter bark
And burning clove.

When stiff and sore and scarred
I take away my hand
From leaning on it hard
In grass and sand,

The hurt is not enough:
I long for weight and strength
To feel the earth as rough
To all my length.

For undying true love that always promises to return, then my favorite is 10,000 Miles.

Fare thee well
My own true love
Farewell for a while
Im going away
But Ill be back
Though I go 10,000 miles

10,000 miles
My own true love
10,000 miles or more
The rocks may melt
And the seas may burn
If I should not return

Oh dont you see
That lonesome dove
Sitting on an ivy tree
Shes weeping for
Her own true love
As I shall weep for mine

Oh come ye back
My own true love
And stay a while with me
If I had a friend
All on this earth
Youve been a friend to me.

Choices and Changes

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

At some point we have all probably read this Robert Frost poem: A simple story of choices that change a life, with the somewhat bittersweet line of "Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back." When anyone looks back on their life, they often can point to times when they had to make a choice that sent their lives in one direction while the other possible avenue became an opportunity missed.

Some of these events where a divergence occurred are looked on with a wistful countenance and "I wish I hadn't missed out on that" while others can make you laugh, "Boy did I miss a bullet with that one". Sometimes there is longing over times we said goodbye never to see that person again and yet with memory, missing that person becomes as real as the instant the loss or choice took place.

One of the greatest times of decision in our nation's history was the Civil War that meant state against state, brother against brother, the separation from loved ones, and the lives that came to an end. War is one thing we all wish we could miss, but it is still with us today.

One of the most beautiful examples of decisions that led to longing for someone deeply missed appears in Ken Burns' "Civil War" and the letter of Sullivan Ballou to his beloved Sarah. Once you have heard this letter, or the beautiful song "Ashokan Farewell" that was played for the series, you can't help but think of the power of choices and the people or chances missed.