Poem by Robert Lee Frost

* * *

 The bearer of evil tidings,
 When he was halfway there,
 Remembered that evil tidings
 Were a dangerous thing to bear.

 So when he came to the parting
 Where one road led to the throne
 And one went off to the mountains
 And into the wild unknown,

 He took the one to the mountains.
 He ran through the Vale of Cashmere,
 He ran through the rhododendrons
 Till he came to the land of Pamir.

 And there in a precipice valley
 A girl of his age he met
 Took him home to her bower,
 Or he might be running yet.

 She taught him her tribe's religion:
 How, ages and ages since,
 A princess en route from China
 To marry a Persian prince

 Had been found with child; and her army
 Had come to a troubled halt.
 And though a god was the father
 And nobody else was at fault,

 It had seemed discreet to remain there
 And neither go on nor back.
 So they stayed and declared a village
 There in the land of the Yak.

 And the child that came of the princess
 Established a royal line,
 And his mandates were given heed to
 Because he was born divine.

 And that was why there were people
 On one Himalayan shelf;
 And the bearer of evil tidings
 Decided to stay there himself.

 At least he had this in common
 With the race he chose to adopt:
 They had both of them had their reasons
 For stopping where they had stopped.

 As for his evil tidings,
 Belshazzar's overthrow,
 Why hurry to tell Belshazzar
 What soon enough he would know?

1. The Black Cottage
2. The Gum-Gatherer
3. A Peck of Gold
4. But Outer Space
5. The Code

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