O the Lands of Where-Away! <br />Tell us--tell us--where are they? <br />Through the darkness and the dawn <br />We have journeyed on and on-- <br />From the cradle to the cross-- <br />From possession unto loss,-- <br />Seeking still, from day to day, <br />For the lands of Where-Away. <br /> <br />When our baby-feet were first <br />Planted where the daisies burst, <br />And the greenest grasses grew <br />In the fields we wandered through, <br />On, with childish discontent, <br />Ever on and on we went, <br />Hoping still to pass, some day, <br />O'er the verge of Where-Away. <br /> <br />Roses laid their velvet lips <br />On our own, with fragrant sips; <br />But their kisses held us not, <br />All their sweetness we forgot;-- <br />Though the brambles in our track <br />Plucked at us to hold us back-- <br />'Just ahead,' we used to say, <br />'Lie the Lands of Where-Away.' <br /> <br />Children at the pasture-bars, <br />Through the dusk, like glimmering stars, <br />Waved their hands that we should bide <br />With them over eventide: <br />Down the dark their voices failed <br />Falteringly, as they hailed, <br />And died into yesterday-- <br />Night ahead and--Where-Away? <br /> <br />Twining arms about us thrown-- <br />Warm caresses, all our own, <br />Can but stay us for a spell-- <br />Love hath little new to tell <br />To the soul in need supreme, <br />Aching ever with the dream <br />Of the endless bliss it may <br />Find in Lands of Where-Away!<br /><br />James Whitcomb Riley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/where-away/
