"For then my thoughts (from far where I abide)
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee."
- Shakespeare, Sonnet 27
Passing by shrines and races,
passing by pubs and churches,
passing by statues' faces,
passing by busy merchants,
by joys and woes they roam,
passing Mecca and Rome,
under green heavens' dome,
all roads on earth their home.
Maimed they proceed and hunchbacked,
hungry, in worn-out garments,
their eyes permeated with sunset,
their hearts with sunrise at summits.
No-man's lands hymn behind them,
lightnings send their flare,
and stars do wink from the high rim,
and upstarted birds declare
the world will stay as it has been,
yes, remain as it has been,
scintillatingly ice-clean,
questionable and skin-thin,
the world will be lying bluntly
and face no end or limit,
cognizable, most likely,
but nevertheless infinite.
So self- or divine assurance
one is going to find no use in,
the rest be, beyond the sugar,
one's road and one's illusion.
Let birds of the earth keep screeching
and let dawns and sunsets cross it.
Let soldiers' blood enrich it,
let poets' script endorse it.
Original: www.world-art.ru/lyric/lyric.php?id=7338
Original (song): niifiga.name/media/Beijing/amber/16_Pilgrims.mp3