Phor Phans oph Phantastes

Beware the Alderwood!
And the Alderwood Mall!
(But mostly Southcenter Mall!)

If you have read George MacDonald's faerie romance, Phantastes, you'll know what this song is all about!

The Anodos* Song

(For Flicka)

Verse 1:

 

Are you weary wanderer?  Are you tired and footsore?

Do you want to lay down your pack and not wander anymore?

Is the road before you lost in fog? Are your markers all unclear?

Rest assured, dear wanderer, there's a reason He's brought you here.

 

Chorus:

A great good is coming, is coming, is coming to thee, o Anodos.

May you know that good is always coming.

Though it seems like evil now, someday you'll surely bow

And confess that His good was always coming.

 

Verse 2:

Do you wish that you had not been placed on this path so labyrinthine --

Wanting to unhear the things you've heard and unsee the things you've seen?

Does your world feel like a grammar book, 'cuz you find your present tense?

And your past is so imperfect?  And your future does not make sense?

 

Chorus

Bridge
When the lines blur between fantasy and reality
And you search in vain for good
You're just confined by time and a limited capacity
To see things as you should
 

Verse 3:

So you ask me how do I know that these things I say are true?

Well, my name also was Anodos when I was a wanderer, too.

I walked wonder-filled and tempest-tossed 'til I crossed that great divide,

Just to find that I was never lost when I reached the other side.

 

Chorus 2:

A great good was coming, was coming, was coming to me, o Anodos.

I can say that good was always coming.

Though I called it evil then, when I saw with eyes of men,

I know now to have been good always coming.

 

Repeat original chorus.

 

UPDATE: Got all the chords!  Wrote the bridge!  Huzzah!

 

*Anodos = "pathless" or "ascent" in Greek -- connoting a seeker of enlightenment.