How touchèn in the zunsheen's glow 's the white road up athirt the hill. What pirty hollers now the long William Barnes. 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, A shadowy highway cool and brown, From rippled water to dappled swamp, The outward eye, the quiet will, And the striding heart from hill to hill; The tempter apple over the fer.ce; The palish asters along the wood,— An open hand, an easy shoe, And a hope to make the day go through, Another to sleep with, and a third The resonant far-listening morn, The crickets mourning their comrades lost, (Or is it their slogan, plaintive and shrill, A hunger fit for the kings of the sea, A thirst like that of the Thirsty Sword, An idle noon, a bubbling spring, A scrap of gossip at the ferry; 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, A taster of wine, with an eye for a maid, Never heart-whole, never heart-sick No fidget and no reformer, just A calm observer of ought and must, A lover of books, but a reader of man, Who never defers and never demands, Seeing it good as when God first saw And O 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-wind, 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 sound of the hollow sea's release With only another league to wend; These are the joys of the open road— Bliss Carman. A FOOT 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, Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms, Strong and content I travel the open road. The earth, that is sufficient, I do not want the constellations any nearer, (Still here I carry my old delicious burdens, I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them, I am fill'd with them, and I will fill them in return.) |