The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I

WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always, night and day,

I hear lake-water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway or on the pave

ments gray,

I hear it in the deep heart's core.

W. B. Yeats.

The Invitation

BEST

EST and brightest, come away,—
Fairer far than this fair Day,

Which, like thee, to those in sorrow
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow
To the rough year just awake
In its cradle on the brake.

The brightest hour of unborn Spring
Through the winter wandering,
Found, it seems, the halcyon morn
To hoar February born;

Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth,
It kiss'd the forehead of the earth,
And smiled upon the silent sea,

And bade the frozen streams be free,
And waked to music all their fountains,
And breathed upon the frozen mountains,
And like the prophetess of May
Strew'd flowers upon the barren way,
Making the wintry world appear
Like one on whom thou smilest, dear.

Away, away, from men and towns,
To the wild wood and the downs-
To the silent wilderness

Where the soul need not repress
Its music, lest it should not find
An echo in another's mind,

While the touch of Nature's art
Harmonizes heart to heart.

Radiant Sister of the Day
Awake! arise! and come away!
To the wild woods and the plains,
To the pools where winter rains
Image all their roof of leaves,
Where the pine its garland weaves
Of sapless green, and ivy dun,
Round stems that never kiss the sun;
Where the lawns and pastures be
And the sandhills of the sea;
Where the melting hoar-frost wets
The daisy-star that never sets,
And wind-flowers and violets
Which yet join not scent to hue
Crown the pale year weak and new;
When the night is left behind
In the deep east, dim and blind,
And the blue moon is over us,
And the multitudinous
Billows murmur at our feet,
Where the earth and ocean meet,
And all things seem only one

In the universal Sun.

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

THE ROAD

In its widest sense, "the open road is the sign and symbol of all outdoor life, of all holiday-making in which the sense of the athlete is awakened,-in a word, of all that is active and adventurous, from sailing and rowing to cliff-climbing and moorland tramping. But fascinating as these are, there is a something even more fascinating in the thought of the open road when we narrow the meaning and confine it to the paths trod by the feet of men and horses and cut by their wheels, restrict it, that is, to those nerves and sinews of the soil which bind village to village, city to city, and land to land. Think of all the many and diverse tracks which, once landed at Calais, if only you keep going eastward, will take you to Moscow or Tobolsk, westward to Lisbon or Madrid, and southward to Rome. What is more intellectually exhilarating to the mind, and even to the senses, than to stand looking down the vista of some great road in France or Italy, or up a long and well-worn horse-track in Asia or Africa, a path which has not yet been trod by the foot or the wheel of the gazing wayfarer, or by the hoof of his horse, and to wonder through what strange places, by what towns and castles, by what rivers and streams, by what mountains and valleys it will take him ere he reaches his destination?

The Spectator.