I listen going on

 

photo by Julie Zickefoose

Here's a poem by Richard Wilbur, one of my favorite poets:

Sirens

I never knew the road

From which the whole earth didn't call away,

With wild birds rounding the hill crowns,

Haling out of the heart an old dismay,

Or the shore somewhere pounding its slow code,

Or low-lighted towns

Seeming to tell me, stay.

Lands I have never seen

And shall not see, loves I will not forget

All I have missed, or slighted, or foregone

Call to me now. And weaken me. And yet

I would not walk a road without a scene.

I listen going on,

The richer for regret.