It's just a special little ditty that I often say to my wife in response to her urging me to put down the book or turn off the computer and go to bed to get some needed sleep. The words are very well known ….they are Robert Frost's from Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening. Those words are:
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.\
She's usually gone by the time that I finish. The words to the following hymn were written by my favorite author....John Bunyan.....and the music by my favorite classical composer....Ralph (pronounced Raif) Vaughan Williams. The hymn.....Bunyan's only hymn.....is "To Be A Pilgrim." It was sung by personal request of Baroness and former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at her funeral on April 17, 2013 at St. Paul's Cathedral in London.
He who would valiant be
'Gainst all disaster,
Let him in constancy
Follow the Master
There's no discouragement
Shall make him once relent
His first avowed intent
To be a pilgrim
Who so beset him round
With dismal stories,
Do but themselves confound- -
His strength the more is
No foes shall stay his might
Though he with giants fight:
He will make good his right
To be a pilgrim.
Since, Lord, thou dost defend
Us with thy Spirit,
We know we at the end
Shall life inherit.
Then fancies flee away!
I'll fear not what men say,
I'll labor night and day
To be a pilgrim.
I myself.....when I think back to Bunyan's words....use a more original translation of the last stanza:
Hobgoblin nor foul fiend
Can daunt his spirit,
He knows he at the end
Shall life inherit,
Then fancies fly away,
He'll fear not what men say,
He'll labor night and day
To be a pilgrim.
