(TO AN AIR OF SCHUBERT)
Give to me the life I love,
Let the lave go by me,
Give the jolly heaven above
And the byway nigh me.
Bed in the bush with stars to see,
Bread I dip in the river--
There’s the life for a man like me,
There’s the life for ever.
Let the blow fall soon or late,
Let what will be o’er me;
Give the face of earth around,
And the road before me.
Wealth I ask not, hope nor love,
Nor a friend to know me;
All I ask, the heaven above
And the road below me.
*****
Every one who has been upon a walking or a boating tour, living in the
open air, with the body in constant exercise and the mind in fallow,
knows true ease and quiet. The irritating action of the brain is set
at rest; we think in a plain, unfeverish temper; little things seem
big enough, and great things no longer portentous; and the world is
smilingly accepted as it is.
*****
For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for
travel’s sake. The great affair is to move; to feel the needs and
hitches of our life more nearly; to come down off this feather-bed of
civilisation, and find the globe granite under foot and strewn with
cutting flints. Alas, as we get up in life, and are more preoccupied
with our affairs, even a holiday is a thing that must be worked for. To
hold a pack upon a pack-saddle against a gale out of the freezing north
is no high industry, but it is one that serves to occupy and compose the
mind. And when the present is so exacting who can annoy himself about
the future?
*****