A PRAYER FOR TOURISTS
Heavenly Father, look down on us, your humble, obedient tourist servants, who are doomed to travel this earth, taking photographs, mailing postcards, buying souvenirs and walking around in drip-dry underwear.

Protect us from surly taxi drivers, avaricious porters and unlicensed guides.

Give us the wisdom to tip correctly in currencies we do not understand. Forgive us for under-tipping out of ignorance and over-tipping out of fear..

And when our voyage is over and we return to our loved ones, grant us the favour of finding someone who will look at our home movies and listen to our stories, so that our lives as tourists will not have been in vain..

This is a short extract from a prayer composed

some years ago by the humorist Art Buchwald

* * * * * * * * * * * *

To a Skylark

Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!

Bird thou never wert,

That from Heaven, or near it,

Pourest thy full heart

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

 

Higher still and higher

From the earth thou springest

Like a cloud of fire;

The blue deep thou wingest,

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

 

In the golden lightning

Of the sunken sun,

O’er which clouds are bright’ning,

Thou dost float and run;

Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

 

First three verses of a long poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley

(The Service Area on the M6 Toll, behind the motel, is a place still to hear skylarks!)

 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Today is ours – let’s live it,

And love is strong – let’s give it.

A song can help – let’s sing it;

The past is gone – don’t rue it.

Our work is here – let’s do it.

The world is wrong – let’s right it;

If evil comes – let’s fight it.

The road is rough – let’s clear it;

The future’s vast – don’t fear it.

Is faith asleep? – Let’s wake it;

Today is free – let’s take it.

 

Beah Richards