COMPILED BY EDWARD VERRALL LUCAS

THE OPEN ROAD A little book for wayfarers containing some 140 selections, mostly complete poems, from over 60 authors. Iliustrated cover linings, green and gold flexible covers, 326 PP. oth printing. $1.50 postpaid. Also available in leather.

THE FRIENDLY TOWN

A little book for the urbane containing over 200 selections in verse and prose from some 100 authors. Illustrated cover linings, red and gold flexible covers, 380 pp. $1.50 postpaid. Also available in leather. A BOOK OF VERSES

FOR CHILDREN Over 300 poems from 80 authors. With illustrated title-page and cover linings in color, two other illustrations, and elaborate binding. 3d printing. $2.00 postpaid. New and popular edition, without illustrations, $1.00 net; by mail, $1.10. HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS,

NEW YORK

THE OPEN ROAD

A Little Book for Wayfarers

COMPILED BY

E. V. LUCAS

“Life is sweet, brother. . . . There's day and
night, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and
stars, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind on
the heath. '-Lavengro.

3464

NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

1909

Alone, the country life-how sweet!

But wood and meadow, heath and hill,
The dewy morn, the noonday heat,
The nest half-hid, the poppied wheat,

The peaty purling rill,
The brake fern's odorous retreat,
The hush of eve, serene, discreet-

With you are sweeter still.

EXPLANATION

This little book aims at nothing but providing companionship on the road for city-dwellers who make holiday. It has no claims to completeness of any kind: it is just a garland of good or enkindling poetry and prose fitted to urge folk into the open air, and, once there, to keep them glad they came—to slip easily from the pocket beneath a tree or among the heather, and provide lazy reading for the time of rest, with perhaps a phrase or two for the feet to step to and the mind to brood on when the rest is over.

E. V. L. April, 1899.

1938

ER FRON C. & MAY

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 blessSpontaneous 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 form 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