Traveler Quotes - page 5
Merry the green, the green hill shall be merry.
Hungry, the owlet shall seek out the mouse
And Jack his Joan, but they shall never marryAnd snow shall fly, the big flakes fat and furry.
Lonely, the traveler shall seek out the house,
And Jack his Joan, but they shall never marry.Weary the soldiers go, and come back weary,
Up a green hill and down the withered hill,
And Jack from Joan, but they shall never marry.
Donald Justice
[In these stories, Lafferty mostly] seems to be writing about places that are not on the map but are real just the same. Lafferty was a traveler in his youth, and he may have glimpsed some of these places on the watery horizon; whether he was sober at the time is not the issue right now. ... [Lafferty] has a reading knowledge of all the languages of the Latin, German, and Slavic families, as well as Gaelic and Greek. The army sent him to Morotai, New Guinea and the Philippines, and at one time he could speak pretty good Passar Malay and Tagalog. He turned to writing about six years ago, as a substitute for serious drinking. The tavernkeepers weep while we rejoice: Lafferty's stories are full of a warm, Bacchic glow, recollected in sobriety - euphoria, comradeship, nostalgia, and the ever-renewed belief that something wonderful may happen.
R. A. Lafferty