Reepicheep

Where the waves grow sweet,

Doubt not Reepicheep…

But even when the waves are bitter and deep,

We must press on toward the Utter East

For there is our passion, our reason for being

So forward on ships laden with hearty fellows

We progress through distractions and waters below

Pressing onward and onward, though other men bellow

Saying “turn back,” “that’s not true,” “you will be brought low”

Great perils await us on this frightful journey,

But also great vision and glory and life

And our ship will be helmed with assiduous turning

As we press on beyond what everyone else calls right

The waters are brackish, are dark and disturbing,

And every league filled with all things unknown,

But what is the purpose of beginning a journey

If we’re just going to turn back halfway and go home?

Yet there at the end, a light in the tunnel,

The waters turn clear and the salt is no more

Here I must venture out into my coracle

Leaving behind all I love on the shore

For none will come with me this part of the journey,

And perhaps I was purposed to take it alone

My shipmates’ paths call them in other directions,

But I know my path can never lead me back home

Farewell now to Narnia, all I remember,

My family, my mouse-kin, my king, and my place

I paddle out here toward Aslan’s country

For all I desire to see Him face to face

The ship has turned back and I venture now forward

In protection more fragile than vessels of wood,

My coracle, my heart open here to be mangled

By all of the dangers at the end of the world

Now over the edge I plunge into the unknown,

The country to me promised, but never before seen

Now I come here with nothing but pure dauntless courage

If I die, it won’t be because I didn’t believe

Now skipping ahead to the end of the story—

The place from which history always begins—

We know that I did come into Aslan’s Country,

For I’m there at the gate to welcome home all my friends.