The path that I like to wander on
Is a rural lane in the trees,
It’s a pleasant walk, and I tend to talk
To myself, just shooting the breeze.
Then it comes to a wood, and it parts in two
The main path tends to the right,
And heads up ‘til, just over the hill
It’s bathed in a pure sunlight.

And there stands a mansion in plain stucco
With columns that hold up a porch,
And each of the windows send out a beam
As of someone, holding a torch,
A woman dressed plainly in white comes out,
Invites me to come in for tea,
Then sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t,
But we spend our time pleasantly.

We sit in a kitchen that’s tiled in white
And the sunlight beams through the door,
She sometimes reads to me from a book,
And asks what I’m looking for.
I tell her I’m totally lost, and then
Confusion’s writ over my face,
So she makes the sign of the saviour’s cross,
And blesses me with her grace.

The other path veers off to the left,
Is narrow and mean through the trees,
It slopes on down to a valley with grass
Though a turn in the path deceives.
For hidden there in the undergrowth
Is a cottage in shadow, and grim,
Where a gypsy girl with an evil smile
Beckons for me to come in.

And sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t,
She isn’t offering tea,
She dances and whirls in the kitchen there,
And sometimes, sits on my knee.
She places my hand on her silken thigh,
And asks what I’m looking for,
I tell her I’m totally lost, and then
I struggle on out of her door.

A poet once said that he took the path,
The one less travelled by,
I’ve tried them both, and I still go back
To the ones both low, and high.
For my soul is soothed by the woman in white,
She lifts me up to the heights,
But the gypsy girl puts my mind in a whirl
And she sates my darker nights.

David Lewis Paget