SALISBURY PERSPECTIVES POEM 11

Cheating the day, we rise before the heat to do the morning's work.

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"I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it's very difficult to find anyone. I should think so — in these parts! We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!" J.R.R. Tolkien

Sprightly

Carefree we wonder across the straight,

Full in our bloom the children of the sun,

The quivering beams before us dance merrily,

Our life my love has only just begun.

Beyond us lies the verdant field aligned,

With such gaiety we need never pine,

For hand in hand we have each other,

For succour, interest and our daily bread.

With vigour we treat across this unchartered land,

Our plans lain aside we sprightly go,

Wherever life or love sustains us both,

Abroad expansive in our perpetual mode.

Beneath the sky upon the earth,

Our fixed purpose brings us pleasure,

The trees lie ahead as our company,

We blossom just as these as we drink deep.

"To venture causes anxiety, but not to venture is to lose one's self.... And to venture in the highest is precisely to be conscious of one's self." Søren Kierkegaard