_A Wanderer’s Song_
A wind’s in the heart of me, a fire’s in my heels,
I am tired of brick and stone and rumbling wagon-wheels;
I hunger for the sea’s edge, the limits of the land,
Where the wild old Atlantic is shouting on the sand.
Oh, I’ll be going, leaving the noises of the street,
To where a lifting foresail-foot is yanking at the sheet;
To a windy, tossing anchorage where yawls and ketches ride,
Oh, I’ll be going, going, until I meet the tide.
And first I’ll hear the sea-wind, the mewing of the gulls,
The clucking, sucking of the sea about the rusty hulls,
The songs at the capstan in the hooker warping out,
And then the heart of me’ll know I’m there or thereabout.
Oh, I’m tired of brick and stone, the heart of me is sick,
For windy green, unquiet sea, the realm of Moby Dick;
And I’ll be going, going, from the roaring of the wheels,
For a wind’s in the heart of me, a fire’s in my heels.
_John Masefield_
_The Singer’s Quest_
I’ve been wandering, listening for a song,
Dreaming of a melody, all my life long....
The lilting tune that God sang to rock the tides asleep,
And crooned above the cradled stars before they learned to creep.
Oh, there was laughter in it and many a merry chime,
Before He had turned moralist, grown old before His time,
And He was happy, trolling out His great blithe-hearted tune,
Before He slung the little earth beneath the sun and moon.
But I know that somewhere that song is rolling on,
Like flutes along the midnight, like trumpets in the dawn;
It throbs across the sunset and stirs the poplar tree
And rumbles in the long low thunder of the sea.
* * * * *
First-love sang me one note and heart-break taught me two,
A child has told me three notes, and soon I’ll know it through;
And when I stand before the Throne I’ll hum it low and sly,
Watching for a great light of welcome in His eye, ...
“Put a white raiment on him and a harp into his hand,
And golden sandals on his feet and tell the saints to stand
A little farther off unless they wish to hear the truth,
For this blessed lucky sinner is going to sing about my youth!”
_Odell Shepard_
_The Toil of the Trail_
What have I gained by the toil of the trail?
I know and know well.
I have found once again the lore I had lost
In the loud city’s hell.
I have broadened my hand to the cinch and the axe,
I have laid my flesh to the rain;
I was hunter and trailer and guide;
I have touched the most primitive wildness again.
I have threaded the wild with the stealth of the deer,
No eagle is freer than I;
No mountain can thwart me, no torrent appall,
I defy the stern sky.
So long as I live these joys will remain,
I have touched the most primitive wildness again.
_Hamlin Garland_
_Two Old Men_
_Sit-by-the-Fire_:
Men travel far and far away
To come home on a happy day;
And even they whom the roads call
Who never know a home at all,
They dream, I think, of roads that end
At four walls with a fire and friend!
_Foot-loose_:
I’ve never seen a hill but I
Have dreamed a hill behind it,
Nor ever watched a falling star
Without the hope I’d find it,
And all the islands of the sea
Have known my name and called to me!
_Sit-by-the-Fire_:
I have planted apple trees
And eaten at my pleasure,
My house is full of memories
For an old man to treasure.
This I have and that I have,
And you may see them standing,
Silver in the dining room,
An old clock on the landing!
_Foot-loose_:
I have neither house nor tree,
Nor heirs alert and knowing,
The four roads of eternity
Are ways I would be going.
Vagabonding in the skies
I will not ask for Paradise!
_Louise Driscoll_
_The Best Road of All_
I like a road that leads away to prospects white and fair,
A road that is an ordered road, like a nun’s evening prayer;
But best of all I love a road that leads to God knows where.
You come upon it suddenly--you cannot seek it out;
It’s like a secret still unheard and never noised about;
But when you see it, gone at once is every lurking doubt.
It winds beside some rushing stream where aspens lightly quiver;
It follows many a broken field by many a shining river;
It seems to lead you on and on, forever and forever!
You tramp along its dusty way beneath the shadowy trees,
And hear beside you chattering birds or happy booming bees,
And all around you golden sounds, the green leaves’ litanies.
And here’s a hedge and there’s a cot; and then, strange, sudden turns--
A dip, a rise, a little glimpse where the red sunset burns;
A bit of sky at evening time, the scent of hidden ferns.
A winding road, a loitering road, the finger mark of God,
Traced when the Maker of the world leaned over ways untrod.
See! Here He smiled His glowing smile, and lo, the goldenrod!
I like a road that wanders straight; the King’s highway is fair,
And lovely are the sheltered lanes that take you here and there;
But best of all I love a road that leads to God knows where.
_Charles Hanson Towne_
_The Cry of the Dreamer_
I am tired of planning and toiling
In the crowded hives of men,
Heart-weary of building and spoiling,
And spoiling and building again,
And I long for the dear old river,
Where I dreamed my youth away;
For a dreamer lives forever,
And a toiler dies in a day.
I am sick of the showy seeming,
Of life that is half a lie;
Of the faces lined with scheming
In the throng that hurries by;
From the sleepless thought’s endeavor
I would go where the children play;
For a dreamer lives forever,
And a thinker dies in a day.
I can feel no pride, but pity,
For the burdens the rich endure;
There is nothing sweet in the city
But the patient lives of the poor.
Oh, the little hands too skillful,
And the child-mind choked with weeds!
The daughter’s heart grown willful
And the father’s heart that bleeds!
No! No! from the streets’ rude bustle,
From trophies of mart and stage,
I would fly to the wood’s low rustle
And the meadows’ kindly page.
Let me dream as of old by the river,
And be loved for my dreams alway;
For a dreamer lives forever,
And a toiler dies in a day.
_John Boyle O’Reilly_
_Highways_
Who’s learned the lure of trodden ways,
And walked them up and down,
May love a steeple in a mist,
But cannot love a town.
Who’s worn a bit of purple once
Can never, never lie
All smothered in a little box
When stars are in the sky.
Who’s sipped old port in Venice glass
May thirst for better brew--He’s
drunk an amber wine of sun
And wet his mouth with dew!
Who’s ground the grist of trodden ways--
The gray dust and the brown--
May love red tiling two miles off--
But cannot love a town.
_Leslie Nelson Jennings_
_Afoot and Light-Hearted_
Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune--I myself am good-fortune;
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Strong and content I travel the open road.
_Walt Whitman_
_The Path that Leads to Nowhere_
There’s a path that leads to Nowhere
In a meadow that I know,
Where an inland island rises
And the stream is still and slow;
There it wanders under willows
And beneath the silver green
Of the birches’ silent shadows
Where the early violets lean.
Other pathways lead to Somewhere,
But the one I love so well
Had no end and no beginning--
Just the beauty of the dell,
Just the windflowers and the lilies
Yellow striped as adder’s tongue,
Seem to satisfy my pathway
As it winds their sweets among.
There I go to meet the Springtime,
When the meadow is aglow,
Marigolds amid the marshes,--
And the stream is still and slow.--
There I find my fair oasis,
And with care-free feet I tread
For the pathway leads to Nowhere,
And the blue is overhead!
All the ways that lead to Somewhere
Echo with the hurrying feet
Of the Struggling and the Striving,
But the way I find so sweet
Bids me dream and bids me linger,
Joy and Beauty are its goal,--
On the path that leads to Nowhere
I have sometimes found my soul!
_Corinne Roosevelt Robinson_
_City-Weary_
Come, let’s get out of here! Out of the din of it,
Out of the bickering, out of the sin of it,
Out of the smoke of it, out of the noise of it,
Out of the pitiful, lean, leering joys of it.
Come on, let’s go
To a hilltop I know,
Where the air is washed clean,
And the trees are a-gleam
With the gold of the sun,
And there’s naught to be done
Save to lie there and look
At life’s beauties and dream.
Come, let’s get out of here! Out of the stress of it,
Out of the paint and the powder and dress of it,
Out of the cry at the loss or the gain of it,
Out of the hurt and the grief and the pain of it.
Let’s slip away
To the fields for a day,
Where there is nothing
On counters and shelves,
Nothing to strive for,
To work or contrive for,
Let’s leave the city
And just be ourselves.
Come, let’s get out of here! Out of the crush of it,
Out of the bedlam and out of the rush of it,
Out of the sham of it, out of the heat of it,
Out of the withering, scornful conceit of it.
Come on! Let’s go
Where the clean breezes blow,
Out where the splendors
Are all that they seem;
Let’s merely walk awhile,
Ponder and talk awhile,
Giving our souls
The full sweep of a dream.
_Edgar A. Guest_
_The Faun_
I will go out to grass with that old King,
For I am weary of clothes and cooks.
I long to paddle with the throats of brooks,
To lie down with the clover
Tickling me all over,
And watch the boughs above me sway and swing.
Come, I will pluck off custom’s livery,
Nor longer be a lackey to old Time.
Time shall serve me, and at my feet shall fling
The spoil of listless minutes. I shall climb
The wild trees for my food, and run
Through dale and upland as a fox runs free,
Laugh for cool joy and sleep i’ the warm sun,--
And men will call me mad, like that old King.
For I am woodland-nurtur’d, and have made
Dryads my bedfellows,
And I have played
With the sleek Naiads in the splash of pools
And made a mock of gowned and trousered fools.
And I am half Faun now, and my heart goes
Out to the forest and the crack of twigs,
The drip of wet leaves, and the low soft laughter
Of brooks that chuckle o’er old mossy jests
And say them over to themselves, the nests
Of squirrels, and the holes the chipmunk digs,
Where through the branches the slant rays
Dapple with sunlight the leaf-matted ground,
And th’ wind comes with blown vesture rustling after,
And through the woven lattice of crisp sound
A bird’s song lightens like a maiden’s face.
Oh, goodly damp smell of the ground!
Oh, rough sweet bark of the trees!
Oh, clear sharp cracklings of sound!
Oh, life that’s a-thrill and a-bound
With the vigor of boyhood and morning and the noontide’s rapture of ease!
Was there ever a weary heart in the world?
A lag in the body’s urge, or a flag of the spirit’s wing?
Did a man’s heart ever break
For a lost hope’s sake?
For here there is lilt in the quiet and calm in the quiver of things.
Ay, this old oak, gray-grown and knurled,
Solemn and sturdy and big,
Is as young of heart, as alert and elate in his rest,
As the oriole there that clings to the tip of the twig
And scolds at the wind that it buffets too rudely his nest.
_Richard Hovey_
_The Call of the Wild_[1]
Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there’s nothing else to gaze on,
Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,
Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon,
Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?
Have you swept the visioned valley with the green stream
streaking through it,
Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost?
Have you strung your soul to silence? Then for God’s sake go and do it;
Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.
Have you wandered in the wilderness, the sage-brush desolation,
The bunch-grass levels where the cattle graze?
Have you whistled bits of rag-time at the end of all creation,
And learned to know the desert’s little ways?
Have you camped upon the foothills, have you galloped o’er the ranges,
Have you roamed the arid sun-lands through and through?
Have you chummed up with the mesa? Do you know its moods and changes?
Then listen to the wild--it’s calling you.
Have you known the Great White Silence, not a snow-gemmed twig aquiver?
(Eternal truths that shame our soothing lies.)
Have you broken trail on snowshoes? mushed your huskies up the river,
Dared the unknown, led the way, and clutched the prize?
Have you marked the map’s void spaces, mingled with the mongrel races,
Felt the savage strength of brute in every thew?
And though grim as hell the worst is, can you round it off with curses?
Then hearken to the Wild--it’s wanting you.
Have you suffered, starved and triumphed, grovelled down,
yet grasped at glory,
Grown bigger in the bigness of the whole?
“Done things” just for the doing, letting babblers tell the story,
Seeing through the nice veneer the naked soul?
Have you seen God in His splendors, heard the text that nature renders?
(You’ll never hear it in the family pew.)
The simple things, the true things, the silent men who do things--
Then listen to the Wild,--it’s calling you.
They have cradled you in custom, they have primed you with their preaching,
They have soaked you in convention through and through;
They have put you in a showcase; you’re a credit to their teaching--
But can’t you hear the Wild?--it’s calling you.
Let us probe the silent places, let us seek what luck betide us;
Let us journey to a lonely land I know.
There’s a whisper on the night-wind, there’s a star agleam to guide us,
And the Wild is calling, calling ... let us go.
_Robert W. Service_
[1] From “The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses” by Robert W.
Service. Copyright by Barse & Hopkins, Newark, N. J.
_A City Voice_
Outside here in the city the burning pavements lie,
There’s heat and grime and blown black dust to help the day go by,
There’s the groaning of the city like a goaded, beaten beast;--
I know a place where God’s great trees go up to meet His sky--
Like an army green with banners, and a happy wind released,
Goes swinging like a merry child among the branches high.
Outside here in the city there’s a poison in the air--The
fevered, heavy hand o’ heat that smites and may not spare;
There’s little comfort in the night--there’s torment in the day;--
I know a place where cool and deep the quiet lake lies bare,
All day about its shaded brink the wild birds dart and play,
And willows dip their finger-tips like dainty ladies there.
Oh, the heart of me is hungering for my own, own place!
I’m tortured with the slaying heat, the dizzy headrace.
Oh, for the soft, cold touch of grass about my tired feet,
The breath of pine and cedar blown against my weary face,
The lip-lap of the water like a little song and sweet,
And God’s green trees and God’s blue skies above me for a space.
_Theodosia Garrison_
_Fishing_
A day to dream
Along a stream,
The song of birds
Instead of words,
And pictures rare
Flung everywhere.
Instead of smoke
To blind and choke,
An atmosphere
That’s sweet and clear,
The trees instead
Of chimneys red.
A patch of sky
To rest the eye;
Instead of noise,
A thousand joys;
Instead of greed,
A kindlier creed.
A day to dream
Along the stream,
To think and plan,
Restores a man,
And this he knows
Who fishing goes.
_Edgar A. Guest_
_Camping Song_
Has your dinner lost its savor?
Has your greeting lost its cheer?
Is your daily stunt a burden?
Is your laughter half a sneer?
There’s a medicine to cure you,
There’s a way to lift your load,
With a horse and a saddle and a mile of open road.
Is your eyeball growing bilious?
Is your temper getting short?
Is this life a blind delusion,
Or a grim, unlovely sport?
There’s a world of health and beauty,
There’s a help that cannot fail,
In a day behind the burros
On a dusty mountain trail.
Come out, old man, we’re going
To a land that’s free and large,
Where the rainless skies are resting
On a snowy mountain marge.
When we camp in God’s own country,
You will find yourself again,
With a fire and a blanket and the stars upon the plain!
_Bliss Carman_
_The Green Inn_
The roof is high and arched and blue,
The floor is spread with pine;
On my four walls the sunlight falls
In golden flecks and fine;
And swift and fleet on noiseless feet
The Four Winds bring me wine.
Here none may mock an empty purse
Or ragged coat and poor,
But Silence waits within the gates,
And Peace beside the door;
The weary guest is welcomest,
The richest pays no score.
* * * * *
Oh, you who in the House of Strife
Quarrel and game and sin,
Come out and see what cheer may be
For starveling souls and thin
Who come at last from drought and fast
To sit in God’s Green Inn.
_Theodosia Garrison_
_Wanderlust_
The highways and the byways, the kind sky folding all,
And never a care to drag me back and never a voice to call;
Only the call of the long white road to the far horizon’s wall.
The glad seas and the mad seas, the seas on a night of June,
And never a hand to beckon back from the path of the new-lit moon;
Never a night that lasts too long or a dawn that breaks too soon!
The shrill breeze and the hill breeze, the sea breeze fierce and bold,
And never a breeze that gives the lie to a tale that a breeze has told;
Always the tale of the strange and new in the countries strange and old.
_Isabel Ecclestone Mackay_
_Song_[2]
Something calls and whispers, along the city street,
Through shrill cries of children and soft stir of feet,
And makes my blood to quicken and makes my flesh to pine.
The mountains are calling; the winds wake the pine.
Past the quivering poplars that tell of water near
The long road is sleeping, the white road is clear.
Yet scent and touch can summon, afar from brook and tree,
The deep boom of surges, the gray waste of sea.
Sweet to dream and linger, in windless orchard close,
On bright brows of ladies to garland the rose,
But all the time are glowing, beyond this little world,
The still light of planets and the star-swarms whirled.
_Georgiana Goddard King_
[2] From “The Way of Perfect Love.”
_In City Streets_
Yonder in the heather there’s a bed for sleeping,
Drink for one athirst, ripe blackberries to eat;
Yonder in the sun the merry hares go leaping,
And the pool is clear for travel-wearied feet.
Sorely throb my feet, a-tramping London highways,
(Ah! the springy moss upon a northern moor!)
Through the endless streets, the gloomy squares and byways,
Homeless in the City, poor among the poor!
London streets are gold--ah, give me leaves a-glinting
’Midst grey dykes and hedges in the autumn sun!
London water’s wine, poured out for all unstinting--
God! For the little brooks that tumble as they run!
Oh, my heart is fain to hear the soft wind blowing,
Soughing through the fir-tops up on northern fells!
Oh, my eye’s an ache to see the brown burns flowing
Through the peaty soil and tinkling heatherbells.
_Ada Smith_
“_Up! Up! My Friend, and Quit Your Books_”
Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;
Or surely you’ll grow double:
Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?
The sun, above the mountain’s head,
A freshening lustre mellow
Through all the long green fields has spread,
His first sweet evening yellow.
Books! ’tis a dull and endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet his music! on my life,
There’s more of wisdom in it.
And hark! how blithe the throstle sings,
He, too, is no mean preacher:
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your Teacher.
She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless--
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.
One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.
Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Misshapes the beauteous forms of things:--
We murder to dissect.
Enough of Science and of Art;
Close up these barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.
_William Wordsworth_
_Road Song_
It’s home for me and a snug roof-tree
When frosts hold the earth in thrall,
But it’s hey, I say, for the broad highway,
When the young year’s voices call.
’Tis then I would be rolling off,
A-bowling off, a-strolling off--
An errant leaf bound whitherward
The wind of fancy wills;
’Tis then I would be going off,
A-whirling off, a-blowing off
Along the road that leads away
Beyond the purple hills.
’Twas hearth and home when the sky’s gray dome
Hung low and the north wind skirled;
Now it’s hey for the reel of the out-bound keel,
And it’s ho for the great round world.
’Tis now I would be roving off
A-shoving off, a-moving off
To where the far horizon shows
Mysterious and dim;
It’s time that I was shipping off
A-rising and a-dipping off
To strange and unknown ports that lie
Below the round world’s rim.
Oh, some were made for peaceful shade
Of their vine and their own fig tree,
But marked of fate with the gipsy trait,
It’s the open road for me.
And so I would be pushing on,
A-trekking on, a-mushing on,
And leave the old well-trodden trails
Long merry miles behind.
’Tis joyful I’d go swinging off,
A-whooping and a-singing off,
As goal-less as a vagrant crow
A-winging down the wind.
_James Stuart Montgomery_
_Walking at Night_
My face is wet with the rain
But my heart is warm to the core,
For I follow at will again
The road that I loved of yore;
And the dim trees beat the dark,
And the swelling ditches moan,
But my heart is a singing, soaring lark
For I travel the road alone.
Alone in the living night
Away from the babble of tongues;
Alone with the old delight
Of the night wind in my lungs;
And the wet air on my cheeks
And the warm blood in my veins,
Alone with the joy he knows who seeks
The thresh of the young spring rains,
With the smell of the pelted earth,
The tearful drip of the trees,
Making him dream of the sound of mirth
That comes with the clearing breeze.
’Tis a rare and wondrous sight
To tramp the wet awhile
And watch the slow delight
Of the sun’s first pallid smile,
And hear the meadows breathe again
And see the far woods turn green,
Drunk with the glory of wind and rain
And the sun’s warm smile between!
I have made me a vagrant song,
For my heart is warm to the core,
And I’m glad, oh, glad that the night is long
For I travel the road once more.
And the dim trees beat the dark
And the swelling ditches moan,
With the joy of the singing, soaring lark
I travel the road, alone!
_Amory Hare_
_Road Song_
Give me the clear blue sky overhead, and the long road to my feet,
And the winds of heaven to winnow me through, and a
brother tramp to greet,
With an Inn at the end of day for rest, and the world may
keep its bays--
For these are the gifts of the wayside gods, and the gifts
that I would praise.
Come from the murk of your city streets to the tent of all the world,
When your final word on Art is said, and your flag of Faith is furled,
When your heart no longer gives a throb at the first faint
breath of Spring--
Ah, turn your feet to the ribbon-road with a chorus all may sing!
* * * * *
Then give me the clear blue sky overhead, and the long road to my feet,
And a dog to tell my secrets to, and a brother tramp to meet--
And the years may take their toll of me till I come to the weary West,
And I lodge for good in the world’s own Inn, a wayworn, waiting guest!
_W. G. Tinckom-Fernandez_
_A Song of the Open Road_
The old Earth-Mother calls us,
And we hearken unto her cry,
For we dare not question her bidding
Lest we sicken and droop and die.
The spirit of change is burning
As a fever in heart and brain.
In the ranks of the Free Companions
We must take to the road again.
We have lain in the tents of the dwellers;
We have ta’en of their drink and food;
We, that were weary, have slumbered,
Have slumbered and found rest good.
We have kissed the lips of their maidens,
From their kin we have chosen our brides;
But the summons has come from the Mother,
And no one who hears it abides.
We do the will of the Mother,
We bow to the Word she sends,
Though we know not whither we journey,
Nor the goal where the journey ends.
On the quest of the Strange Adventure
We sally, hand-in-hand,
As the men of the days nomadic
When the hunter was lord in the land.
The winds a-sweep through the forests
Shall brace our souls for the march,
The balm of the dews descending
Shall chasten the heats that parch.
Through vista of brakes entangled
The stars shall guide, in the night,
By day the sun shall quicken
The pulse of our life’s delight.
Ho! for the zest of travel,
The wayfarer’s romance,
The joy of the unexpected,
The hope of the noble chance.
We have girded our feet with sandals,
We carry the pilgrim’s load.
In the ranks of the Free Companions
We take to the open road.
_Louis J. McQuilland_
_A Maine Trail_
Come follow, heart upon your sleeve,
The trail, a-teasing by,
Past tasseled corn and fresh-mown hay,
Trim barns and farm-house shy,
Past hollyhocks and white well-sweep,
Through pastures bare and wild,
Oh come, let’s fare to the heart-o’-the-wood
With the faith of a little child.
Strike in by the gnarled way through the swamp
Where late the laurel shone,
An intimate close where you meet yourself
And come unto your own,
By bouldered brook to the hidden spring
Where breath of ferns blows sweet
And swift birds break the silence as
Their shadows cross your feet.
Stout-hearted thrust through gold-green copse
To garner the woodland glee,
To weave a garment of warm delight,
Of sun-spun ecstasy;
’Twill shield you all winter from frosty eyes,
’Twill shield your heart from cold;
Such greens!--how the Lord Himself loves green!
Such sun!--how He loves the gold!
Then on till flaming fireweed
Is quenched in forest deep;
Tread soft! The sumptuous paven moss
Is spread for Dryads’ sleep;
And list ten thousand thousand spruce
Lift up their voice to God--We
can a little understand,
Born of the self-same sod.
Oh, come, the welcoming trees lead on,
Their guests are we to-day;
Shy violets smile, proud branches bow,
Gay mushrooms mark the way;
The silence is a courtesy,
The well-bred calm of kings;
Come haste! the hour sets its face
Unto great Happenings.
_Gertrude Huntington McGiffert_
_The Spell of the Pool_
There’s a crystal-arrowed riffle at the turning of the river,
There’s a waterfall where nature teaches school,
There’s a bank of swaying alder with each budding twig aquiver--
And there’s magic in the murmur of the pool!
Can’t you see the cold, blue water as it eddies, sparkles, flashes
In the willow-shadowed reaches of the stream,
And the ever-widening ripples where the trout, in falling, splashes
As the osprey drops his quarry with a scream?
_L. Burton Crane, Jr._
_The Lake_
There is a lake--but I forget its name,
That flickers in my memory like flame!
Guarded by Dolomites whose magic glow
Of red primeval merges into snow.
A lake so beautiful, God gave it birth
By melting one vast emerald on earth!
A lake so strange, that, did its waters part,
Undine would be enshrined within its heart.
And as with lovely sound the air may fill,
Though chords are hushed and all the strings be still,
So will this lake--but I forget its name--
Flicker within my memory like flame!
_Eleanour Norton_
_The Great Outdoors_
O great outdoors, without floors,
Or walls, or roofs, or bounds,
Grant this day that I may stray
Amidst thy plains and mounds,
Let me be among the free
That climb thy purple hills;
Let me breathe the scents that wreathe
Thy violet bordered rills:
Let thy sun, till day be done,
Shine from out thy great blue sky;
Let thy starlight and the still night
Soothe my rest when down I lie;
Let the shadows cool the meadows,
And the night sounds whisper low,
In the stillness of thy valleys
Where the waters lap and flow.
_Maud Russell_
_Come, Spur Away!_
Come, spur away,
I have no patience for a longer stay,
But must go down
And leave the chargeable noise of this great town:
I will the country see,
Where old simplicity,
Though hid in gray,
Doth look more gay
Than foppery in plush and scarlet clad.
Farewell, you city wits, that are
Almost at civil war--
’Tis time that I grow wise, when all the world grows mad.
* * * * *
Ours is the sky,
Where at what fowl we please our hawk shall fly:
Nor will we spare
To hunt the crafty fox or timorous hare;
But let our hounds run loose
In any ground they’ll choose;
The buck shall fall,
The stag, and all.
Our pleasures must from their own warrants be,
For to my Muse, if not to me,
I’m sure all game is free:
Heaven, earth, are all but parts of her great royalty.
_Thomas Randolph_
_Hunting Song_
Oh, who would stay indoor, indoor,
When the horn is on the hill? (_Bugle_: Tarantara!)
With the crisp air stinging, and the huntsmen singing,
And a ten-tined buck to kill!
Before the sun goes down, goes down,
We shall slay the buck of ten; (_Bugle_: Tarantara!)
And the priest shall say benison, and we shall ha’e venison,
When we come home again.
Let him that loves his ease, his ease,
Keep close and house him fair; (_Bugle_: Tarantara!)
We’ll still be a stranger to the merry thrill of danger
And the joy of the open air.
But he that loves the hills, the hills,
Let him come out to-day! (_Bugle_: Tarantara!)
For the horses are neighing, and the hounds are baying,
And the hunt’s up, and away!
_Richard Hovey_
_The Call_
Have you heard the calling, calling, of the Distance,
Through the purple reaches where the mountains wait;
With Dreamland round their shoulders, where the sunset fire smoulders--
Oh, the guarding Distance calls us from their gate.
In the morning it entices with the sunrise,
In the evening it is urging through the gold;
We must heed the sweet insistence, for this mystic blue-veiled Distance
Hides our wished-for land of Dreams within its hold.
We will cinch the saddle tighter, tie the strings of wide sombrero,
While the mists about the top are gray and dim;
With the eager trail uptrending, and the morning sky low bending--
Oh, the evening star will we see o’er the rim.
When the wind blows thin and keen about the summit,
And the camp-fire sparkles warm upon the brim,
On a couch of pine boughs fragrant, who would scorn to be a vagrant,
And follow when the Distance calls to him?
_Cora D. Fenton_
_The King’s Highway_
“El Camino Real”
All in the golden weather, forth let us ride to-day,
You and I together, on the King’s Highway,
The blue skies above us, and below the shining sea;
There’s many a road to travel, but it’s this road for me.
It’s a long road and sunny, and the fairest in the world--
There are peaks that rise above it in their snowy mantles curled,
And it leads from the mountains through a hedge of chaparral,
Down to the waters where the sea gulls call.
It’s a long road and sunny, it’s a long road and old,
And the brown padres made it for the flocks of the fold;
They made it for the sandals of the sinner-fold that trod
From the fields in the open to the shelter-house of God.
They made it for the sandals of the sinner-fold of old;
Now the flocks they are scattered and death keeps the fold;
But you and I together we will take the road to-day,
With the breath in our nostrils, on the King’s Highway.
We will take the road together through the morning’s golden glow,
And we’ll dream of those who trod it in the mellowed long ago;
We will stop at the Missions where the sleeping padres lay,
And we’ll bend a knee above them for their souls’ sake to pray.
We’ll ride through the valleys where the blossom’s on the tree,
Through the orchards and the meadows with the bird and the bee,
And we’ll take the rising hills where the manzanitas grow,
Past the gray tails of waterfalls where blue violets blow.
Old Conquistadores, oh, brown priests and all,
Give us your ghosts for company when night begins to fall;
There’s many a road to travel, but it’s this road to-day,
With the breath of God about us on the King’s Highway.
_John Steven McGroarty_
_God Made This Day For Me_
Jes’ the sort o’ weather and jes’ the sort o’ sky
Which seem to suit my fancy, with the white clouds driftin’ by
On a sea o’ smooth blue water. Oh, I ain’t an egotist,
With an “I” in all my thinkin’, but I’m willin’ to insist
That the Lord that made us humans and the birds in every tree
Knows my special sort o’ weather an’ He made this day fer me.
This is jes’ my style o’ weather--sunshine floodin’ all the place,
An’ the breezes from the eastward blowin’ gently on my face.
An’ the woods chock-full o’ singin’ till you’d think birds never had
A single care to fret ’em or a grief to make ’em sad.
Oh, I settle down contented in the shadow of a tree,
An’ tell myself right proudly that the day was made fer me.
It’s my day, sky an’ sunshine, an’ the temper o’ the breeze,
Here’s the weather I would fashion could I run things as I please--
Beauty dancin’ all around me, music ringin’ everywhere,
Like a weddin’ celebration. Why I’ve plumb fergot my care
An’ the tasks I should be doin’ fer the rainy days to be
While I’m huggin’ the delusion that God made this day fer me.
_Edgar A. Guest_
_The Country Faith_
Here in the country’s heart
Where the grass is green
Life is the same sweet life
As it e’er hath been.
Trust in a God still lives,
And the bell at morn
Floats with a thought of God
O’er the rising corn.
God comes down in the rain,
And the crop grows tall--
This is the country faith,
And the best of all!
_Norman Gale_
_Green Things Growing_
_Not God! in gardens! when the eve is cool?
Nay, but I have a sign;
’Tis very sure God walks in mine._