_Traveller’s Joy_
What went you, Pilgrim, for to see?
A sign or wonder-thing maybe?
Some marvel or a holy sight
As clerks in chronicles do write?
For you have gone and come again,
Now tell us plain?
I saw the sky from rim to rim
Full-filled with light up to the brim,
As though it were a mighty cup
To God’s lip holden up.
I saw a river and a down,
A harbor and a little town,
A marshland blue with irises--
I saw all these.
Saw, too, a sedgy pond where lay
Lilies like anchored stars that Day
Had ravished from the summer night
And kept them there alight.
I saw a hill-side gold with furze,
And wildrose banks and junipers
Distilling fragrance pungent-sweet;
I saw a path that called my feet
To go with it as any friend,
To heart’s desire at the end.
Sooth, all of these! but ’mid them all
Did nothing wonderful befall?
No miracle?
Yea, but I have no word to tell
Of that great thing that happened me--
I saw the sea!
O wide, and blue and infinite!
League upon league of space and light!
I think that down this sapphire floor
One might walk straight to heaven’s door
And lift its golden latchet-bar,
Nor find it far
Or very strange, as one would guess,
After such earthly loveliness.
Poor pilgrim, is this all your store
Of tales to tell? Is there no more
Than this that any man might show?
Yea, all is told. How should you know
That I have looked on Beauty’s face,
And being far from men a space
Have found at springs of Quietness
The hands that heal, the hands that bless--
Have known the sun and wind and trod
The holy earth and talked with God!
_Arthur Ketchum_
_Ellis Park_
Little park that I pass through,
I carry off a piece of you
Every morning hurrying down
To my work-day in the town;
Carry you for country there
To make the city ways more fair.
I take your trees
And your breeze,
Your greenness,
Your cleanness,
Some of your shade, some of your sky,
Some of your calm as I go by;
Your flowers to trim
The pavements grim;
Your space for room in the jostled street,
And grass for carpet to my feet.
Your fountains take and sweet bird calls
To sing me from my office walls.
All that I can see
I carry off with me.
But you never miss my theft,
So much treasures you have left.
As I find you, fresh at morning,
So I find you, home returning,
Nothing lacking from your grace.
All your riches wait in place
For me to borrow
On the morrow.
Do you hear this praise of you,
Little park that I pass through?
_Helen Hoyt_
_Afoot_
Long is the road ’twixt town and town that runs,
Travelled by many a lordly cavalcade,
With trappings gay, and rich caparisons,
Jester and squire, and laughing knight and maid:
With gallant clash and stir they go their way:
I trudge afoot thro’ all the drouth of day.
For me, the misty meadows fresh with morn,
The tramp thro’ noontide heat to evening gray,
The far-seen smoke from the day’s goal upborne,
The halt, the friendly greeting by the way,
The distant hill beyond far hill descried,
The road by day, the rest at eventide.
I know each wayside wood, each moorland brown,
Each hidden by-way and reposeful nook,
Where I may linger when the sun goes down,
Dipping tired feet in some cool flowing brook;
I know the free hill and the glooming glen,
And kindly fires, and humble homes of men.
_C. Fox-Smith_
_The Going of His Feet_
His feet went here and there
About the common earth.
He touched to grandeur all
Men held of little worth.
He loved the growing flowers,
The small bright singing birds,
The patient flocks of sheep,
The many-pastured herds.
The field of rippling corn
That shimmered in the sun,
The soft blue smoke of eve
That curled when day was done....
He did not search afar
For what He had to say:
His mind reached forth and drew
Its strength from every day:}
The struggling nets, alive
With fish drawn from the sea
Supplied Him with the apt
And chosen simile....
He saw a neighbor build
A house that did not stand--
And men may not forget
The House Upon The Sand;
He saw a widow drop
Her mite into the hoard--
And to eternity
That treasure is up-stored;
He heard a publican
Who thought none others there--
The souls of all mankind
Are richer for that prayer....
O, Poet of the World,
I pray Thee, come to me,
That my lame heart might walk,
That my dark soul may see;
And teach me, too, to go
About the ways of earth
And find the Wealth of God
In things of little worth!
_Harry Kemp_
_Down East and Up Along_
Down east and up along the fringy coast of Maine
There’s rumor of the summer and the warm soft rain.
There’s lisp of little leaves astir in the heart of every tree,
There’s gossip in the grasses that run down to meet the sea.
In my heart I hear them calling like a siren’s song,
“Come and share the glories of down east and up along!”
Down east and up along the brooks are flowing full,
The gray sea is blue again, the spring tides pull,
The keening of the winter wind no longer haunts the seas,
There’s the velvet touch of raindrops upon the southern breeze.
The throb of life resurgent is calling loud and long,
“Come and share the glories of down east and up along!”
Down east and up along the sun is warm again,
Calling to the hungry hearts of city-weary men.
Telling of the golden days in a land of woods and sea,
A land of summer glory and of autumn ecstasy.
You can almost hear the music of the hovering angel throng,
For the very edge of Heaven lies down east and up along!
_Edwin Osgood Grover_
_The Joys of the Road_
Now the joys of the road are chiefly these:
A crimson touch on the hard-wood trees;
A vagrant’s morning wide and blue,
In early fall, when the wind walks, too;
A shadowy highway cool and brown,
Alluring up and enticing down
From rippled water to dappled swamp,
From purple glory to scarlet pomp;
The outward eye, the quiet will,
And the striding hart from hill to hill;
The tempter apple over the fence;
The cobweb bloom on the yellow quince;
The palish asters along the wood,
A lyric touch of the solitude;
An open hand, an easy shoe,
And a hope to make the day go through,--
Another to sleep with, and a third
To wake me up at the voice of a bird;
The resonant, far-listening morn,
And the hoarse whisper of the corn;
The crickets mourning their comrades lost,
In the night’s retreat from the gathering frost
(Or is it their slogan, plaintive and shrill,
As they beat on their corselets, valiant still?)
A hunger fit for the kings of the sea,
And a loaf of bread for Dickon and me;
A thirst like that of the Thirsty Sword,
And a jug of cider on the board;
An idle noon, a bubbling spring,
The sea in the pine-tops murmuring;
A scrap of gossip at the ferry;
A comrade neither glum nor merry,
Asking nothing, revealing naught,
But minting his words from a fund of thought,
A keeper of silence eloquent,
Needy, yet royally well content,
Of the mettled breed, yet abhorring strife,
And full of the mellow juice of life,
No fidget and no reformer, just
A calm observer of ought and must,
A lover of books, but a reader of man,
No cynic and no charlatan,
Who never defers and never demands,
But smiling, takes the world in his hands,--
Seeing it good as when God first saw
And gave it the weight of His will for law.
And Oh, the joy that is never won,
But follows and follows the journeying sun,
By marsh and tide, by meadow and stream,
A will-o’-the-wisp, a light-o’-dream,
Delusion afar, delight anear,
From morrow to morrow, from year to year,
A jack-o’-lantern, a fairy fire,
A dare, a bliss, and a desire!
The racy smell of the forest loam,
When the stealthy, sad-heart leaves go home;
(O leaves, O leaves, I am one with you,
Of the mould and the sun and the wind and the dew!)
The broad gold wake of the afternoon;
The silent fleck of the cold new moon;
The sound of the hollow sea’s release
From stormy tumult to starry peace;
With only another league to wend;
And two brown arms at the journey’s end!
These are the joys of the open road--
For him who travels without a load.
_Bliss Carman_
_Song of the Open_
There’s a whisper in the orchard, there’s a laughter in the breeze,
There’s a catbird’s chuckle in the maple tree;
And the wind has come from westward, scattering the maple-keys.
Oh, it’s time to break your fetters and be free!
All the rain’s astir and calling, all the grass is wet and brown,
All the world waits just beyond the window-pane;
And the day is dull and dripping in the gray, gas-lighted town,
But the country’s fresh and clean with fall again.
Oh, it’s out along the prairie with the cool rain in your face,
And it’s out along the river flowing free,
And it’s out across the hill-tops in a flying-footed race
With just your heart to bear you company.
There’s the prairie curving softly with its golden blooms aglow,
And the purple splashes on its ripened flanks;
And the idle grassy hollows where the brilliant salvias grow,
And the sturdy cat-tails marshal out their ranks.
Ah, the scarlet of the orchards and the saffron of the fields!
Ah, the purple of the vineyards in the sun!
Ah, the river in the sunlight, flashing silver as a shield
For a moment--and your Indian summer’s done.
So it’s home along the prairie with the north wind blowing chill,
And it’s home across the meadow’s heaving sea,
And it’s home with winter shouting just beyond the farthest hill,
But yet the road is open and is free.
_Sara Hamilton Birchall_
_Rebellion_
To wake at morn,
And hear the little laugh
Of the lake-wind in the trees;
To watch at dawn
The earliest sunbeam kiss
The mist-crowned, towering peaks
And glide down to the plains.
Ah, that is Life!
Not this--
To wake at morn,
And hear the swelling roar
Of Man, Beast and Machine,
Toiling in murky air
And a city’s sweat!
At noon to dream
Where Nature’s bowers are hid
Beneath an arch
Of twined and intersticing vines,
While on the air
Quivers the chanting of the sighing woods,
And the songs of mating birds.
Ah, that is Life!
Not this--
At noon to pause,
And lay aside the pen for one brief hour:
Then to return, as I did yesterday,
Will do to-morrow and on all to-morrows--
Oh, Fool, Machine, and Slave!
Again at dusk,
To watch the sun’s last ray
Fade in the west;
To feel Earth’s grand transition
From day to night--
That moment when the world
Pauses and knows itself!
The Angelus chimes
And echoes round the Earth;
Here the Muezzin’s call,
There a child’s lullaby,
And now a poor serf’s prayer....
Earth’s evensong!
To hear that is to live!
Not this--
To breast the roaring surge
Of thousands, pale and tired, dead in soul,
Crowding with merciless haste toward home.
Home?...
Past ere the sweet of home has touched the sense!
To toil that we may sleep
That better we may toil;
To toil that we may eat,
That better we may toil.
Ay, that is Life; but still--
But still we dream!
_Stephen Chalmers_
_The Tree-Top Road_
Life’s sweetest joys are hidden
In unsubstantial things;
An April rain, a fragrance,
A vision of blue wings:
And what are memory and hope
But dreams? And yet the bread
On which these little lives of ours
Are fed and comforted!
Without imagination
The soul becomes a clod,
Missing the trail of beauty,
Losing the way to God.
And I have built a templed-stair
Out of a lilac bloom
And climbed to heaven with purple pomp
And censers of perfume!
* * * * *
I have no feud with Labor,
But at the Gates of June
I fling away my dusty pack
And join in Youth’s glad tune.
And just forgetting for a while
That I am worn and gray,
Go sailing off with Peter Pan
Along the Tree-top Way!
_May Riley Smith_
_Early Morning at Bargis_
Clear air and grassy lea,
Stream-song and cattle-bell--
Dear man, what fools are we
In prison-walls to dwell!
To live our days apart
From green things and wide skies,
And let the wistful heart
Be cut and crushed with lies!
Bright peaks!--And suddenly
Light floods the placid dell,
The grass-tops brush my knee:
A good crop it will be,
So all is well!
O man, what fools are we
In prison-walls to dwell!
_Hermann Hagedorn_
_Denial_
It is not down this road I walk,
Or through these brown-leaved trees;
For in my heart I loiter where
The clover calls the bees;
Where trees are green and streams are warm,
And drowsy life is sweet--
It is not down this lane I go
With tired, reluctant feet.
_Lancaster Pollard_
_“A la Belle Étoile”_
Oh, who will lodge at my Inn tonight,
And live both fair and fine,
With a blossoming blackberry vine for a gate,
And a friendly star for a sign?
Good sir, my Inn is a gentle Inn,
The wine is sweet and old;
’Tis Adam’s, sir, with a fine bouquet,
And the color of liquid gold.
The carriages roll on the rocky road
To a musty house afar;
But the gentlefolk stop by the blackberry gate
At the Inn of the Beautiful Star.
Sweet fern, sweet fern for your pillow, sir,
And a quick-eared faun for your mate,
And a firefly’s light for your candle bright--
Good sooth, we sleep in state.
The winds go murmuring by at dusk
And call you up at dawn,
To walk through the fairies’ handkerchiefs
And startle a sleeping fawn.
When day is red on the river’s bed,
And bright on quartz and spar,
We’ll say our short St. Martin’s grace
At the Inn of the Beautiful Star.
The blackberry vine is a maiden now,
With her pale stars in the dew;
Come back next month, good sir, there’ll be
Sweet blackberries for you.
We’ll wish you luck from the blackberry gate.
Although you wander far,
’Tis here that you’ll come home at last--
To our Inn of the Beautiful Star.
_Sara Hamilton Birchall_
_Journey_
Ah, could I lay me down in this long grass
And close my eyes, and let the quiet wind
Blow over me,--I am so tired, so tired
Of passing pleasant places! All my life,
Following Care along the dusty road,
Have I looked back at loveliness and sighed;
Yet at my hand an unrelenting hand
Tugged ever, and I passed. All my life long
Over my shoulder have I looked at peace;
And now I fain would lie in this long grass
And close my eyes,
Yet onward!
Cat-birds call
Through the long afternoon, and creeks at dusk
Are guttural. Whippoorwills wake and cry,
Drawing the twilight close about their throats.
Only my heart makes answer. Eager vines
Go up the rocks and wait; flushed apple-trees
Pause in their dance and break the ring for me;
Dim, shady wood-roads, redolent of fern
And bayberry, that through sweet bevies thread
Of round-faced roses, pink and petulant,
Look back and beckon ere they disappear.
Only my heart, only my heart responds,
Yet, ah, my path is sweet on either side
All through the dragging day,--sharp underfoot,
And hot, and like dead mist the dry dust hangs--
But far, oh, far as passionate eye can reach,
And long, ah, long as rapturous eye can cling,
The world is mine; blue hill, still silver lake,
Broad field, bright flower, and the long white road.
A gateless garden, and an open path;
My feet to follow, and my heart to hold.
_Edna St. Vincent Millay_
_The Sojourner_
I will arise and go; the wind is fain of me,
The laughing wind that stirs my climbing rose;
The tiny clusters nod and talk together,
But what their secret may be, no one knows.
I will arise and go; the wind is fain of me,
The rose is heavy in the southern town,
The wild geese travel northward in the mornings,
The bold-eyed southern spring tears wide her gown.
I will arise and go; the wind is fain of me,
The last snow melts beneath the gray stone walls,
The green young sedges fringe the river-margin,
And in my heart the Northland calls and calls.
I will arise and go; the wind is fain of me.
Too long I wait in summer’s tasselled hall,
Too long I dream amid the tulip blossoms,
Too long I linger when I hear the call.
I will arise and go to seek the mountains,
I will return my playfellows to greet;
Once more the open hills and the sweet meadow,
Once more the virgin Northland’s lips to meet.
_Sara Hamilton Birchall_
_Traveller’s Rest_
When you are tired of the long road and the open sky,
I wish it may be my door that you’re passing by:
I wish it may be my hearth where you will sit down
And tell your tales of the land and sea and the strange far town.
Oh, come you in from eastward or come you in from the west,
Here’s good cheer to greet you and welcome of the best:
Oh, come you with your pockets full or come you home poor,
Here’s a place by the fireside and an open door.
You’ll tell me where you were since, and the things you’ve seen
Up and down the wide world where so long you’ve been,--
All the time that I’ve been here and you far away,--
And then awhile be silent, as good friends may.
And then awhile listen to the wind and rain,
Moaning in the chimney-breast, beating at the pane,--
Dark and cold outside there, and the stormy skies,
And you sitting down here with the firelight in your eyes.
_C. Fox-Smith_
_Far From the Madding Crowd_
It seems to me I’d like to go
Where bells don’t ring nor whistles blow,
Nor clocks don’t strike nor gongs don’t sound,
But where there’s stillness all around.
Not real still stillness; just the trees’
Low whisperings or the croon of bees;
The drowsy tinklings of the rill,
Or twilight song of whippoorwill.
’Twould be a joy could I behold
The dappled fields of green and gold,
Or in the cool, sweet clover lie
And watch the cloud-ships drifting by.
I’d like to find some quaint old boat,
And fold its oars, and with it float
Along the lazy, limpid stream
Where water-lilies drowse and dream.
Sometimes it seems to me I must
Just quit the city’s din and dust,
For fields of green and skies of blue;
And, say! How does it seem to you?
_Nixon Waterman_
_Streams_
I so love water-laughter,
Its bubbling flecks and gleams,
I pray in the hereafter
There somewhere may be streams.
I’d have for my companion
In some celestial nook,
Beneath a spreading banyan,
The music of a brook.
Its measures would entice me,
Uncumbered by the clay,
Its melody suffice me
Till drooped the heavenly day.
Then its all-liquid laughter
Would murmur through my dreams;
I pray in the hereafter
There somewhere may be streams.
_Clinton Scollard_
_The Call_
I must get out to the woods again, to the whispering
tree and the birds awing,
Away from the haunts of pale-faced men, to the spaces wide
where strength is king;
I must get out where the skies are blue and the air is clean
and the rest is sweet,
Out where there’s never a task to do or a goal to reach or
a foe to meet.
I must get out on the trails once more that wind through
shadowy haunts and cool,
Away from the presence of wall and door, and see myself
in a crystal pool;
I must get out with the silent things, where neither laughter
nor hate is heard,
Where malice never the humblest stings and no one is hurt
by a spoken word.
Oh, I’ve heard the call of the tall white pine, and heard
the call of the running brook,
I’m tired of the tasks which each day are mine, I’m weary
of reading a printed book,
I want to get out of the din and strife, the clank and
clamor of turning wheel,
And walk for a day where life is life, and the joys are
true and the pictures real.
_Edgar A. Guest_
_The Road that Leads to Home_
My road is a by-road, with big trees reaching high,
A tapestry of living green against a sapphire sky;
An olden road, a golden road, is the road I love to roam
A gleaming road, a dreaming road, the road that leads to home.
My road is a shy road, where whispering lovers stray
And breathe the scent of the bramble-rose and fields of new-mown hay;
A road to woo with a song or two, ere the day has yet begun,
A smiling road, a beguiling road, that dips into the sun.
My road is a by-road, where townfolk never tread,
With wild wind flowers in the grass, and green leaves overhead;
Oh, dawn-mist road, oh, star-kissed road, across the white sea foam
I hear you crying, hear you sighing, calling the wand’rer home.
_Ethel E. Mannin_
_Echoes from Vagabondia_
_The bed was made, the room was fit, by punctual eve the stars were lit.
The air was still, the water ran, no need was there for maid or man,
When we put up, my ass and I, at God’s green caravanserai._