Chapter VI (1)

Dauntless, triumphant, reckless of alarms,
O Queen that laughest Time and Fear to scorn,
Death, like a bridegroom, tosses in thine arms.
The rapture of your fellowship is borne
Like music on the wind. I hear the blare,
The calling of the undesisting horn,
And tremors as of trumpets on the air.

_Richard Hovey_

[3] Extracts from “Seaward,” an Elegy.

_The World is Too Much With Us_

The World is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours
And are up-gather’d now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for every thing, we are out of tune;

It moves us not.--Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn,--
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

_William Wordsworth_

_Sunrise_

Day!
Faster and more fast,
O’er night’s brim, day boils at last:
Boils, pure gold, o’er the cloud-cup’s brim
Where spurting and suppressed it lay,
For not a froth-flake touched the rim
Of yonder gap in the solid gray
Of the eastern cloud, an hour away;
But forth one wavelet, then another, curled,
Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed,
Rose, reddened, and its seething breast
Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the world.

_Robert Browning_

_Song of the Sea_

The song of the sea was an ancient song
In the days when the earth was young;
The waves were gossiping loud and long
Ere mortals had found a tongue;
The heart of the waves with wrath was wrung
Or soothed to a siren strain,
As they tossed the primitive isles among
Or slept in the open main.
Such was the song and its changes free,
Such was the song of the sea.

The song of the sea took a human tone
In the days of the coming of man;
A mournfuller meaning swelled her moan,
And fiercer her riots ran;
Because that her stately voice began
To speak of our human woes;
With music mighty to grasp and span
Life’s tale and its passion-throes.
Such was the song as it grew to be,
Such was the song of the sea.

The song of the sea was a hungry sound
As the human years unrolled;
For the notes were hoarse with the doomed and drowned,
Or choked with a shipwreck’s gold;
Till it seemed no dirge above the mould
So sorry a story said
As the midnight cry of the waters old
Calling above their dead.
Such is the song and its threnody,
Such is the song of the sea.

The song of the sea is a wondrous lay,
For it mirrors human life;
It is grave and great as the judgment day,
It is torn with the thought of strife;
Yet under the stars it is smooth and rife
With love-lights everywhere,
When the sky has taken the deep to wife
And their wedding-day is fair--
Such is the ocean’s mystery,
Such is the song of the sea.

_Richard Burton_

_Farewell_

Not soon shall I forget--a sheet
Of golden water, cold and sweet,
The young moon with her head in veils
Of silver, and the nightingales.

A wain of hay came up the lane--
O fields I shall not walk again,
And trees I shall not see, so still
Against a sky of daffodil!

Fields where my happy heart had rest,
And where my heart was heaviest,
I shall remember them at peace
Drenched in moon-silver like a fleece.

The golden water sweet and cold,
The moon of silver and of gold,
The dew upon the gray grass-spears,
I shall remember them with tears.

_Katherine Tynan_

_The Return_

I will go back to the great sweet mother,
Mother and lover of men, the sea.
I will go down to her, I and none other,
Close with her, kiss her, and mix her with me;
Cling to her, strive with her, hold her fast;
O fair white mother, in days long past
Born without sister, born without brother,
Set free my soul as thy soul is free.

O fair green-girdled mother of mine,
Sea, that art clothed with the sun and the rain,
Thy sweet hard kisses are strong like wine,
Thy large embraces are keen like pain.
Save me and hide me with all thy waves,
Find me one grave of thy thousand graves,
Those pure cold populous graves of thine,
Wrought without hand in a world without stain.

I shall sleep, and move with the moving ships,
Change as the winds change, veer in the tide;
My lips will feast on the foam of thy lips,
I shall rise with thy rising, with thee subside;
Sleep, and not know if she be, if she were,
Filled full with life to the eyes and hair,
As a rose is fulfilled to the roseleaf tips
With splendid summer and perfume and pride.

This woven raiment of nights and days,
Were it once cast off and unwound from me,
Naked and glad would I walk in thy ways,
Alive and aware of thy ways and thee;
Clear of the whole world, hidden at home,
Clothed with the green and crowned with the foam,
A pulse of the life of thy straits and bays,
A vein in the heart of the streams of the sea.

Fair mother, fed with the lives of men,
Thou art subtle and cruel of heart, men say
Thou hast taken, and shalt not render again;
Thou art full of thy dead, and cold as they.
But death is the worst that comes of thee;
Thou art fed with our dead, O mother, O sea,
But when hast thou fed on our hearts? or when,
Having given us love, hast thou taken away?

O tender-hearted, O perfect lover,
Thy lips are bitter, and sweet thine heart.
Thy hopes that hurt and the dreams that hover,
Shall they not vanish away and apart?
But thou, thou art sure, thou art older than earth;
Thou art strong for death and fruitful of birth;
Thy depths conceal and thy gulfs discover;
From the first thou wert, from the end thou art.

_Algernon Charles Swinburne_

_The Port o’ Heart’s Desire_

Down around the quay they lie, the ships that sail to sea,
On shore the brown-cheeked sailormen they pass the jest with me,
But soon their ships will sail away with winds that never tire,
And there’s one that will be sailing to the Port o’ Heart’s Desire.

The Port o’ Heart’s Desire, and it’s, oh, that port for me,
And that’s the ship that I love best of all that sail the sea;
Its hold is filled with memories, its prow it points away
To the Port o’ Heart’s Desire, where I roamed a boy at play.

Ships that sail for gold there be, and ships that sail for fame,
And some were filled with jewels bright when from Cathay they came,
But give me still yon white sail in the sunset’s mystic fire,
That the running tides will carry to the Port o’ Heart’s Desire.

It’s you may have the gold and fame, and all the jewels, too,
And all the ships, if they were mine, I’d gladly give to you,
I’d give them all right gladly, with their gold and fame entire,
If you would set me down within the Port o’ Heart’s Desire.

Oh, speed you, white-winged ship of mine, oh, speed you to the sea,
Some other day, some other tide, come back again for me;
Come back with all the memories, the joys and e’en the pain,
And take me to the golden hills of boyhood once again.

_John S. McGroarty_

_Sea-Urge_

Oh, to feel the tremble of a ship beneath my feet again,
Now that April’s urge is running riot in the tide,
Where gray gull dips to white gull and the salt spray leaps to meet them
Out across blue water where the tall ships ride.

Freshets in the mountain streams and floods along the river
Go rushing down to join the tossing tumult of the sea.
And the April urge that drives them sets the sailor’s heart aquiver
With the joy of ocean madness when the sails flap free.

_Unknown_

_The Ocean_

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean--roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin--his control
Stops with the shore;--upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man’s ravage, save his own,
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depth with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

His steps are not upon thy paths,--thy fields
Are not a spoil for him,--thou dost arise
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
For earth’s destruction thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send’st him, shivering in thy playful spray,
And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth:--there let him lay.

* * * * *

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty’s form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,
Calm or convulsed--in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving;--boundless, endless, and sublime--
The image of Eternity--the throne
Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made; each zone
Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy
I wantoned with thy breakers--they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror--’twas a pleasing fear,
For I was, as it were, a child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane--as I do here.

_Lord Byron_

_A Song of Desire_

Thou dreamer with the million moods,
Of restless heart like me,
Lay thy white hands against my breast
And cool its pain, O Sea!

O wanderer of the unseen paths,
Restless of heart as I,
Blow hither, from thy caves of blue,
Wind of the healing sky!

O treader of the fiery way,
With passionate heart like mine,
Hold to my lips thy healthful cup
Brimmed with its blood-red wine!

O countless watchers of the night,
Of sleepless heart like me,
Pour your white beauty in my soul,
Till I grow calm as ye!

O Sea, O Sun, O Wind and Stars,
(O hungry heart that longs!)
Feed my starved lips with life, with love,
And touch my tongue with songs!

_Frederic Lawrence Knowles_

_A Sea Change_

Heavy with unshed tears--weary with pain,
At last life brought me to the sea again,
Where beauty spoke above my grief’s demands.
I heard the singing surf--watched sea-birds fly;
I saw a pine-tree etched against the sky,
And crushed the bay-leaves in my tired hands.

Loveliness filled my spirit like a cup:
A sense of healing and of peace welled up
Which but the sea to the sea-lover brings.
I did not hope; I did not even pray;
But as upon that sun-warmed rock I lay
Joy stirred within me with a lift of wings.

_Dorothy Peace_

_Twilight At Sea_

The twilight hours, like birds, flew by,
As lightly and as free,
Ten thousand stars were in the sky,
Ten thousand on the sea;
For every wave, with dimpled face,
That leaped upon the air,
Had caught a star in its embrace,
And held it trembling there.

_Amelia C. Welby_

_Sea-Song_

To-day was a sea-gull day, dear heart, to-day was a sea-gull day,
With a touch of wind, and the beat of surf, and the breath
of the driven spray
Blue of the sky, and blue of the sea, and the white clouds
scudding far,
And my longings swept to the sky-line dim like moths to a candle star.

To-day was a sea-gull day, dear heart, that sparkled with
sun-flecked blue,
But it bound my heart with a wave-linked chain and bore
it away from you.
It stole it far from my hearth and you, though we two sat
side by side,
For my heart it tugged like an anchored ship that strains
with the seaward tide.

And when we wandered back home, dear heart, so soberly
wandered home,
My eyes were blind with the sun-washed gold, and dim
with the lunging foam,
And my heart came swaggering on beside, from the wake of
the distant ships,
With the lilt of a deep sea chanty-strain like wine on its
reckless lips!

_Martha Haskell Clark_

_Deep Down_

The lights are on the harbor,
And the ships at anchor ride--
Blow she high, blow she low, let’er blow!
We’re outward bound at dawning
With the turning of the tide,
And Davy Jones is waiting down below,
Old Davy Jones is watching down below, below, below,
Down deep, deep down, down below.

Now, here’s to hearty weather,
And here’s to starry skies--
Up she goes, down she goes, bullies, Oh!
And here’s to all the ladies,
And damn old Davy’s eyes,
Long may we keep him waiting down below!
Old thieving, crimping Davy, down below, below, below,
Down deep, deep down, down below.

At Rio, Hull or Sidney,
I’ll meet you all again,
So here’s good luck, my bullies, ere we go,
Or I’ll find a berth ’longside you
In the port o’ missing men,
Where Davy Jones is waiting down below,
Where Davy Jones is watching down below, below, below,
Down deep, deep down, down below.

_James Stuart Montgomery_

_The Winds of Heaven_

“_Life is sweet, brother._”

“_Do you think so?_”

“_Think so? There’s Night and Day, brother, both sweet things; sun,
moon and stars, brother, all sweet things; There’s likewise a wind on
the heath._

_Life is very sweet brother._”

GEORGE BORROW

_Do You Fear the Wind?_

Do you fear the force of the wind,
The slash of the rain?
Go face them and fight them,
Be savage again.
Go hungry and cold like the wolf,
Go wade like the crane:
The palms of your hands will thicken,
The skin of your cheeks will tan,
You’ll grow ragged and weary and swarthy,
But you’ll walk like a man!

_Hamlin Garland_

_Hark to the Shouting Wind_

Hark to the shouting Wind!
Hark to the flying Rain!
And I care not though I never see
A bright blue sky again.

There are thoughts in my breast to-day
That are not for human speech;
But I hear them in the driving storm,
And the roar upon the beach.

And oh, to be with that ship
That I watched through the blinding brine!
O Wind! for thy sweepy land and sea!
O Sea! for a voice like thine!

Shout on, thou pitiless Wind,
To the frightened and flying Rain!
I care not though I never see
A calm blue sky again.

_Henry Timrod_

_Who Has Seen the Wind?_

Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you:
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing thro’.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.

_Christina Rossetti_

_Wind_

Wind, wind--heather gipsy
Whistling in my tree!
All the heart of me is tipsy
On the sound of thee.
Sweet with scent of clover,
Salt with breath of sea,
Wind, wind--wayman lover,
Whistling in my tree!

_John Galsworthy_

_The Sea-Wind_

Winnow me through with thy keen clear breath,
Wind with the tang of the sea!
Speed through the closing gates of day,
Find me, and fold me, and have thy way,
And take thy will of me!

Use my soul as you use the sky,--
Gray sky of this sullen day!
Clear its doubt as you speed its wrack
Of storm-clouds burning its splendor back,
Giving it gold for gray!

Bring me word of the moving ships,
Halyards and straining spars;
Come to me clear from the sea’s wide breast
While the last lights die in the yellow west
Under the first white stars!

Batter the closed doors of my heart
And set my spirit free!
For I stifle here in this crowded place
Sick for the tenantless fields of space,
Wind with the tang of the sea!

_Arthur Ketchum_

_I Meant to Do My Work Today_

I meant to do my work to-day--
But a brown bird sang in the apple-tree
And a butterfly flitted across the field,
And all the leaves were calling me.

And the wind went sighing over the land,
Tossing the grasses to and fro,
And a rainbow held out its shining hand--
So what could I do but laugh and go?

_Richard Le Gallienne_

_That Wind Is Best_

Whichever way the wind doth blow
Some heart is glad to have it so;
Then blow it east or blow it west,
The wind that blows, that wind is best.

Then, whatsoever wind doth blow,
My heart is glad to have it so;
And blow it east or blow it west,
The wind that blows, that wind is best.

_Caroline Atherton Mason_

_Happy Wind_

Oh, happy wind, how sweet
Thy life must be!
The great, proud fields of gold
Run after thee:
And here are flowers, with heads
To nod and shake;
And dreaming butterflies
To tease and wake.
Oh, happy wind, I say,
To be alive this day.

_William H. Davies_

_Wind-Litany_

In this world I shall not find
Any Comforter like Wind,
Any friend to so endure,
Any love so strong, so sure.
I was born when Wind with Star
Linked its magic, and from far
Whispered out my destiny--
And the Winds have brothered me.

Strong young hill-winds roistering
Up the steep with me and Spring,
Wild wet thrilling ocean-gales
Flinging out my swelling sails,
Or the little dawning-airs
Rising pure as baby-prayers--
These have loved me since my birth
On the wind-swept swinging earth.

Rose-perfumed night-air that slips
Like a kiss across my lips,
Smoke-tanged wood-breath--they can sweep
All old childhood from its sleep
Underneath thick-fallen days
Heaped and dun across my ways;
For until the end shall be,
Scent o’ wind is Memory.

I remember when befell
Heartbreak fierce, intolerable,
And no voice or touch but bound
Deeper torment on the wound:
Yet a little wind could rise
Stroking cheek and tear-wet eyes,
Breathing, “Hush! All pain shall pass!
Still are winds, and skies, and grass!”

God, when all of earth shall lie
Stripped and new beneath Thine eye,
And Thy gold stars fall unstrung,
And Thy curtain-sky down-flung,
And Thy seas are lifted up
Whole from out their empty cup,
Grant me still, in Heaven’s place
Sweet swift winds across my face!

_Margaret Widdemer_

_A Morning_

The glad, mad wind went singing by,
The white clouds drove athwart the blue,
Bold beauty of the morning sky
And all the world was sun and dew,
And sweet cold air with sudden glints of gold
Like spilled stars glowing in the cedars’ hold.

I laughed for very joy of life,
Oh, thrilling veins, oh, happy heart,
Of this glad world with beauty rife,
Exult that we too are a part;
Rejoice! Rejoice! that miracle of birth
Gave us this golden heritage of earth.

Oh, bold, blue sky, oh, keen, glad wind,
I wonder me if this may be,
That some day, leaving life behind,
Our eyes shall view new land, new sea
So exquisite that, lo! with thrilling breath,
We shall laugh loud for very joy of death.

_Theodosia Garrison_

_The Wind’s Life_

I love the silver-shaken,
The windy tops of trees
That heave and lift in sequence,
Like running surf of seas,

With swathes of changing purples
And vistas golden-deep
Where, for an unstirred moment,
The sunlight lies asleep.

_Harry Kemp_

_The Mystic_

I have ridden the wind,
I have ridden the sea,
I have ridden the moon and stars.
I have set my feet in the stirrup seat
Of a comet coursing Mars.
And everywhere
Thro’ the earth and air
My thought speeds, lightning-shod,
It comes to a place where checking pace
It cries, “Beyond lies God!”

* * * * *

I have ridden the wind,
I have ridden the night,
I have ridden the ghosts that flee
From the vaults of death like a chilling breath
Over eternity.
And everywhere
Is the world laid bare--
Ether and star and clod--
Until I wind to its brink and find
But the cry, “Beyond lies God!”

* * * * *

I have ridden the wind,
I have ridden the stars,
I have ridden the force that flies
With far intent thro’ the firmament
And each to each allies.
And everywhere
That a thought may dare
To gallop, mine has trod--
Only to stand at last on the strand
Where just beyond lies God.

_Cale Young Rice_

_The Hill-Born_

_Again among the hills!
The shaggy hills!
The clear arousing air comes like a call
Of bugle notes across the pines, and thrills
My heart as if a hero had just spoken._

RICHARD HOVEY

_The Cry of the Hillborn_

I am homesick for the mountains--
My heroic mother hills--
And the longing that is on me
No solace ever stills.

I would climb to brooding summits
With their old untarnished dreams,
Cool my heart in forest shadows
To the lull of falling streams;

Hear the innocence of aspens
That babble in the breeze,
And the fragrant sudden showers
That patter on the trees.

I am lonely for my thrushes
In their hermitage withdrawn,
Toning the quiet transports
Of twilight and of dawn.

I need the pure, strong mornings,
When the soul of day is still,
With the touch of frost that kindles
The scarlet on the hill;

Lone trails and winding woodroads
To outlooks wild and high,
And the pale moon waiting sundown
Where ledges cut the sky.

I dream of upland clearings
Where cones of sumac burn,
And gaunt and gray-mossed boulders
Lie deep in beds of fern;

The gray and mottled beeches,
The birches’ satin sheen,
The majesty of hemlocks
Crowning the blue ravine.

My eyes dim for the skyline
Where purple peaks aspire,
And the forges of the sunset
Flare up in golden fire.

There crests look down unheeding
And see the great winds blow,
Tossing the huddled tree-tops
In gorges far below;

Where cloud-mists from the warm earth
Roll up about their knees,
And hang their filmy tatters
Like prayers upon the trees.

I cry for night-blue shadows
On plain and hill and dome,--
The spell of old enchantments,
The sorcery of home.

_Bliss Carman_

_Up a Hill and a Hill_

Up a hill and a hill there’s a sudden orchard-slope,
And a little tawny field in the sun;
There’s a gray wall that coils like a twist of frayed-out rope,
And grasses nodding news one to one.

Up a hill and a hill there’s a windy place to stand,
And between the apple-boughs to find the blue
Of the sleepy summer sea, past the cliffs of orange sand,
With the white charmed ships sliding through.

Up a hill and a hill there’s a little house as gray
As a stone that the glaciers scored and stained;
With a red rose by the door, and a tangled garden-way,
And a face at the window, checker-paned.

I could climb, I could climb, till the shoes fell off my feet,
Just to find that tawny field above the sea!
Up a hill and a hill,--oh, the honeysuckle’s sweet!
And the eyes at the window watch for me!

_Fannie Stearns Davis_

_Hills_

I never loved your plains!--
Your gentle valleys,
Your drowsy country lanes
And pleachèd alleys.

I want my hills!--the trail
That scorns the hollow.--
Up, up the ragged shale
Where few will follow,

Up, over wooded crest
And mossy boulder
With strong thigh, heaving chest,
And swinging shoulder,

So let me hold my way,
By nothing halted,
Until, at close of day,
I stand, exalted,

High on my hills of dream--
Dear hills that know me!
And then, how fair will seem
The lands below me,

How pure, at vesper-time,
The far bells chiming!
God, give me hills to climb,
And strength for climbing!

_Arthur Guiterman_

_Again Among the Hills_

Again among the hills!
The shaggy hills!
The clear arousing air comes like a call
Of bugle notes across the pines, and thrills
My heart as if a hero had just spoken.
Again among the hills!
The jubilant, unbroken,
Long dreaming of the hills!
Far off, Ascutney smiles as one at peace;
And over all
The golden sunlight pours, and fills
The hollow of the earth, like a god’s joy.
Again among the hills!
The tranquil hills
That took me as a boy
And filled my spirit with the silences!

O indolent, far-reaching hills that lie
Secure in your own strength, and take your ease
Like careless giants ’neath the summer sky--
What is it to you, O hills,
That anxious men should take thought for the morrow?
What has your might to do with thought or sorrow,
Or cark and cumber of conflicting wills?
Lone Pine, that thron’st thyself upon the height,
Aloof and kingly, overlooking all,
Yet uncompanioned, with the Day and Night
For pageant and the winds for festival!
I was thy minion once, and now renew
Mine ancient fealty--
To that which shaped me still remaining true,
And through allegiance only growing free.

* * * * *

The rising of the wind among the pines,
The runic wind, full of old legendries!
It talks to the ancient trees
Of sights and signs
And strange earth-creatures strong to make or mar--
Such tales as when the firelight flickered out
In the old days men heard and had no doubt.
O wind, what is your spell?
Borne on your cry, the ages slip away,
And lo, I too am of that elder day;
I crouch by the logs and hear
With credent ear
And simple marvel the far tales men tell.

* * * * *

... Night on the hills!
And the ancient stars emerge.
The silence of their mighty distances
Compels the world to peace. Now sinks the surge
Of life to a soft stir of mountain rills,
And over the swarm and urge
Of eager men sleep falls and darkling ease.

Night on the hills!
Dark mother-Night, draw near;
Lay hands on us and whisper words of cheer
So softly, oh, so softly! Now may we
Be each as one that leaves his midnight task
And throws his casement open; and the air
Comes up across the lowlands from the sea
And cools his temples, as a maid might ask
With shy caress what speech would never dare;
And he leans back to her demure desires,
And as a dream sees far below
The city with its lights aglow
And blesses in his heart his brothers there;
Then toward the eternal stars again aspires.

_Richard Hovey_

_Hill Hunger_

I want to stride the hills! My feet cry out
For hills! Oh, I am sick to death of streets:
The nausea of pavements and people always about;
The savagery of mortar and steel that beats
Me under, hedges me in; the iron shiver
Of traffic!--I want to stride the hills, I want
Hills toned frantic silver or a quiver
Of scarlet; hills that hunger and grow gaunt!
I am tired of steps and steps, and a thousand flights
Of stairs resounding, shuffling, quarreling
With shoes. I want a hill on windy nights,
When April pauses with me, clambering
Over the purple side to the top, until
We pull ourselves up by a star--the hill! the hill!

_Joseph Auslander_

_Afternoon on a Hill_

I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.

I will look at cliffs and clouds
With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
And the grass rise.

And when lights begin to show
Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,
And then start down!

_Edna St. Vincent Millay_

_The Hills_

O my Soul, let us go unto our hills,
We were native to them one day, you and I--
Less dwellers of the earth than of the sky
Where the holy sense of silence stays and stills,
Like a hand of benediction lifted high.

We have stayed in this market-place too long;
We have bartered with the birth-right in our breast;
We have shamed us with buffoonery and jest,
Nor raised our eyes to where our hills were strong,
Above this petty region of unrest.

O, my Soul, let us go unto our hills,
To their wonderful, high silence and their might,
Where the old dreams shall whisper us by night
Till the sullen heart within us stirs and thrills,
And wakes to weep and wonder and delight.
O my soul, let us go unto our hills.

_Theodosia Garrison_

_On a Hill_

Spring on a wind-swept hill!
The grass at our feet
Sheered into waves of light!
Spring, and the woodbird’s trill!
Spring, and the stars of night
Turned dewdrops glist’ning sweet.
Earth-chained we stand,
Thinking unearthly things,
Looking across the land,
Over the hills, beyond the sea,
Our souls on tireless wings
Soaring Eternity.

Spring! oh, the wind’s rush
In the joyous trees!
Oh, wide, free sky, and white
Laughing clouds! And the hush
When, as a musician’s might,
God’s Hand rests on His keys.

_Irene Rutherford McLeod_

_Traveller’s Joy_

_Whose farthest footstep never strayed beyond the village of his birth
Is but a lodger for the night in this old wayside inn of earth.
Tomorrow he shall take his pack and set out for the ways beyond
On the old trail from star to star, an alien and a vagabond._

RICHARD HOVEY

_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._

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

_Wanderthirst_

Beyond the East the sunrise, beyond the West the sea,
And East and West the wanderthirst that will not let me be;
It works in me like madness, to bid me say good-bye;
For the seas call and the stars call, and oh! the call of the sky.

I know not where the white road runs, nor what the blue hills are,
But a man can have the Sun for friend, and for his guide a star;
And there’s no end of voyaging when once the voice is heard,
For the river calls and the road calls, and oh! the call of a bird!

Yonder the long horizon lies, and there by night and day
The old ships draw to home again, the young ships sail away;
And come I may, but go I must, and, if men ask you why,
You may put the blame on the stars and the sun and the
white road and the sky.

_Gerald Gould_

_The Vagabond_