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Poetry for Adventurers
Poetry is what gets lost in translation.
--Robert Frost
Poetry is a packsack of invisible keepsakes.
--Carl Sandburg
Our feeling here at the Aardbargain Adventure Club is that poetry is a necessary part of what might be termed the "adventurous lifestyle;" indeed, it's hard to imagine a person being an adventurer without at least a bit of poetry in his or her soul. There are other correlations. People say that reading poetry is out of style, and a thing of the past. It's the same thing they say about adventuring.
We won't cry about the state of education, in which too many teachers shun anything poetic nowadays (perhaps not by their own choice), but instead suggest that all Club members take time now and then to bring a book of poetry in their backpacks. It doesn't have to be poetry directly related to adventure, but that might be a good starting point, and for that we could hardly recommend a better poet than the Canadian, Robert Service, who penned The Heart of the Sourdough and a great many other poems dear to the hearts of wanderers everywhere. There's a link to that poem below, and some other great poems we should all wish to be acquainted with. DJMc.
The Charge of the Light Brigade
And here are a few samples, just to whet your appetite further:
Some for the glories of this life, and some
Sigh for the Prophet’s Paradise to come:
Ah, take the cash and let the credit go,
Nor heed the rumble of a distant drum.
--Kenneth Grahame
I question not if thrushes sing,
If roses load the air;
Beyond my heart I need not reach
When all is summer there.
-- John Vance Cheney
To see it all, the wide
world-way,
From the fig-leaf belt to the Pole;
With never a one to say me nay,
And none to cramp my soul.
In belly-pinch I will pay the price,
But God! let me be free;
For once I know in the long ago,
They made a slave of me.
--
Robert Service
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