“Tell me where is the road
I can call my own
That I left, that I lost
So long ago?
All these years I have wandered
Oh, when will I know
There’s a way, there’s a road
That will lead me home?
After wind, after rain,
When the dark is done
As I wake from a dream
In the gold of day,
Through the air there’s a calling
From far away,
There’s a voice I can hear
That will lead me home.
Rise up, follow me,
Come away, is the call,
With the love in your heart
As the only song.
There is no such beauty
As where you belong
Rise up, follow me,
I will lead you home.”
~ “The
Road Home”
“In the Spring of 2001 I received a
commission from the Dale Warland Singers to write a short “folk” type choral
arrangement. I had discovered a tune in a folk song book called “The Lone Wild
Bird.”I fell in love with it, made a short recording and asked my good friend
and colleague, Michael Dennis Browne to write new words for this tune. The tune
is taken from “The Southern Harmony
Songbook” of 1835. It is pentatonic and that is part of its attraction. Pentatonic
scales have been extant for centuries and are prevalent in almost all musical
cultures throughout the world. They are universal. Michael crafted three verses
and gave it the title “The Road Home." He writes so
eloquently about “returning” and “coming home” after
being lost or wandering. Again, this is another universal theme and it has
resonated well with choirs around the world as this simple little a cappella
choral piece has become another “best seller” in our Paulus Publications
catalogue and now threatens to catch up with “Pilgrims’ Hymn.” It is just more evidence that often the most
powerful and beautiful message is often a simple one.”
~ Stephen Paulus, composer
~ 1949-2014
A house atop the Kittatinny Ridge
can be seen in the distance from the Lehigh and New England (LNE) Trail on the
other side of the ridge on an early February afternoon at Lehigh Gap.
I presented the image in sepia to
enhance a nostalgic mood.
The Bobolink Trail connects the
Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor (D<rail) with the LNE
Trail about 1.2 miles north and west of the Osprey House at Lehigh Gap Nature
Center. It is named for the Bobolink, a representative of the migrant grassland
bird species that Lehigh Gap Nature Center hopes to attract to the refuge’s
re-vegetated prairie grasslands.
In
the shadow of the Kittatinny Ridge, also called Blue Mountain, The Lehigh Gap
in Slatington, Pennsylvania, is a crossroads where the Lehigh Gap Nature
Center’s trails connect two historic trails – the D&L Trail and the
Appalachian Trail.
Running
from Wilkes-Barre to Bristol, the D&L Trail passes through the Lehigh and
Delaware rivers and their canals in Pennsylvania. The Appalachian Trail, a foot
path, follows the ridge on both sides of the Lehigh Gap, running 1,245 miles
south to Georgia and 930 miles north to Maine.
