Poems About Journeys

Wealth I seek not, hope nor love,Nor a friend to know me;All I seek, the heaven aboveAnd the road below me.

Or let autumn fall on meWhere afield I linger,Silencing the bird on tree,Biting the blue finger.White as meal the frosty field--Warm the fireside haven--Not to autumn will I yield,Not to winter even!

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 aboveAnd the road below me.

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 a prophetess of MayStrew'd flowers upon the barren way,Making the wintry world appearLike one on whom thou smilest, Dear.

Away, away, from men and towns,To the wild wood and the downs--To the silent wildernessWhere the soul need not repressIts music, lest it should not findAn echo in another's mind,While the touch of Nature's artHarmonises heart to heart.

Radiant Sister of the DayAwake! arise! and come away!To the wild woods and the plains,And the pools where winter rainsImage all their roof of leaves,Where the pine its garland weavesOf sapless green, and ivy dun,Round stems that never kiss the sun,Where the lawns and pastures beAnd the sandhills of the sea,Where the melting hoar-frost wetsThe daisy-star that never sets,And wind-flowers and violetsWhich yet join not scent to hueCrown the pale year weak and new;When the night is left behindIn the deep east, dim and blind,And the blue noon is over us,And the multitudinousBillows murmur at our feet,Where the earth and ocean meet,And all things seem only oneIn the universal Sun.

While memory brings us back again Each early tie that twined us,Oh, sweet's the cup that circles then To those we've left behind us!

And when in other climes, we meet Some isle or vale enchanting,Where all looks flowery wild and sweet, And nought but love is wanting;We think how great had been our bliss If Heaven had but assign'd usTo live and die in scenes like this, With some we've left behind us!

As travellers oft look back at eve When eastward darkly going,To gaze upon that light they leave Still faint behind them glowing,--So, when the close of pleasure's day To gloom hath near consign'd us,We turn to catch our fading ray Of joy that's left behind us.

And my native land, whose magical nameThrills to the heart like electric flame;The home of my childhood; the haunts of my prime;All the passions and scenes of that rapturous timeWhen the feelings were young, and the world was new,Like the fresh bowers of Eden unfolding to view;All, all now forsaken, forgotten, foregone!And I, a lone exile remembered of none,My high aims abandoned, my good acts undone,Aweary of all that is under the sun,With that sadness of heart which no stranger may scan,I fly to the desert afar from man.

Afar in the desert I love to ride,With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side!When the wild turmoil of this wearisome life,With its scenes of oppression, corruption, and strife,The proud man's frown, and the base man's fear,The scorner's laugh, and the sufferer's tear,And malice, and meanness, and falsehood, and folly,Dispose me to musing and dark melancholy;When my bosom is full, and my thoughts are high,And my soul is sick with the bondman's sigh,--O, then there is freedom, and joy, and pride,Afar in the desert alone to ride!There is rapture to vault on the champing steed,And to bound away with the eagle's speed,With the death-fraught firelock in my hand,--The only law of the Desert Land!

Afar in the desert I love to ride,With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side,Away, away from the dwellings of men,By the wild deer's haunt, by the buffalo's glen;By valleys remote where the oribi plays,Where the gnu, the gazelle, and the hartebeest graze,And the kudu and eland unhunted reclineBy the skirts of gray forest o'erhung with wild vine;Where the elephant browses at peace in his wood,And the river-horse gambols unscared in the flood,And the mighty rhinoceros wallows at willIn the fen where the wild ass is drinking his fill.

Afar in the desert I love to ride,With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side,O'er the brown karroo, where the bleating cryOf the springbok's fawn sounds plaintively;And the timorous quagga's shrill whistling neighIs heard by the fountain at twilight gray;Where the zebra wantonly tosses his mane.With wild hoof scouring the desolate plain;And the fleet-footed ostrich over the wasteSpeeds like a horseman who travels in haste,Hieing away to the home of her rest,Where she and her mate have scooped their nest,Far hid from the pitiless plunderer's viewIn the pathless depths of the parched karroo.

Afar in the desert I love to ride.With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side,Away, away, in the wilderness vastWhere the white man's foot hath never passed,And the quivered Coranna or BechuanHath rarely crossed with his roving clan,--A region of emptiness, howling and drear,Which man hath abandoned from famine and fear;Which the snake and the lizard inhabit alone,With the twilight bat from the yawning stone;Where grass, nor herb, nor shrub takes root,Save poisonous thorns that pierce the foot;And the bitter-melon, for food and drink,Is the pilgrim's fare by the salt lake's brink;A region of drought, where no river glides,Nor rippling brook with osiered sides;Where sedgy pool, nor bubbling fount,Nor tree, nor cloud, nor misty mount,Appears, to refresh the aching eye;But the barren earth and the burning sky,And the blank horizon, round and round,Spread,--void of living sight or sound.And here, while the night-winds round me sigh,And the stars burn bright in the midnight sky,As I sit apart by the desert stone,Like Elijah at Horeb's cave, alone,"A still small voice" comes through the wild(Like a father consoling his fretful child),Which banishes bitterness, wrath, and fear,Saying,--Man is distant, but God is near!

The wild boar to the sun-dried swamp,The red crane to her reed,And the Romany lass to the Romany ladBy the tie of a roving breed.

Morning waits at the end of the worldWhere winds unhaltered play,Nipping the flanks of their plunging ranks,Till the white sea-horses neigh.

The pied snake to the rifted rock,The buck to the stony plain,And the Romany lass to the Romany lad,And both to the road again.

Both to the road again, again!Out on a clean sea-track--Follow the cross of the gipsy trailOver the world and back!

Follow the Romany patteranNorth where the blue bergs sail,And the bows are gray with the frozen spray,And the masts are shod with mail.

Follow the Romany patteranSheer to the Austral Light,Where the besom of God is the wild south wind,Sweeping the sea-floors white.

Follow the Romany patteranWest to the sinking sun,Till the junk-sails lift through the houseless drift,And the east and the west are one.

Follow the Romany patteranEast where the silence broodsBy a purple wave on an opal beachIn the hush of the Mahirn woods.

The wild hawk to the wind-swept sky,The deer to the wholesome wold,And the heart of a man to the heart of a maid,As it was in the days of old.

The heart of a man to the heart of a maid--Light of my tents, be fleet!Morning waits at the end of the world,And the world is all at our feet!

O drowsy wind of the drowsy west,Sleep, sleep!By your mountains steep,Or down where the prairie grasses sweep,Now fold in slumber your laggard wings,For soft is the song my paddle sings.

Be strong, O paddle! be brave, canoe!The reckless waves you must plunge into.Reel, reel,On your trembling keel,But never a fear my craft will feel.

We've raced the rapids; we're far ahead:The river slips through its silent bed.Sway, sway,As the bubbles sprayAnd fall in tinkling tunes away.

And up on the hills against the sky,A fir tree rocking its lullabySwings, swings,Its emerald wings,Swelling the song that my paddle sings.

And restore them in the sun,Flower and scent and dust and dreaming,With their heart-beats every one!

Set me in the urge and tide-driftOf the streaming hosts a-wing!Breast of scarlet, throat of yellow,Raucous challenge, wooings mellow--Every migrant is my fellow,Making northward with the spring.Loose me in the urge and tide-driftOf the streaming hosts a-wing!

Shrilling pipe or fluting whistle,In the valleys come again;Fife of frog and call of tree-toad,All my brothers, five or three-toed,With their revel no more vetoed,Making music in the rain;Shrilling pipe or fluting whistle,In the valleys come again.

Make me of thy seed to-morrow,When the sap begins to stir!Tawny light-foot, sleepy bruin,Bright-eyes in the orchard ruin,Gnarl the good life goes askew in,Whiskey-jack, or tanager,--Make me anything to-morrow,When the sap begins to stir!

Make me even (How do I know?)Like my friend the gargoyle there;It may be the heart within himSwells that doltish hands should pin himFixed forever in mid-air.Make me even sport for swallows,Like the soaring gargoyle there!

Give me the old clue to follow,Through the labyrinth of night!Clod of clay with heart of fire,Things that burrow and aspire,With the vanishing desire,For the perishing delight,--Only the old clue to follow,Through the labyrinth of night!

Make me over, Mother April,When the sap begins to stir!Fashion me from swamp or meadow,Garden plot or ferny shadow,Hyacinth or humble burr!Make me over, Mother April,When the sap begins to stir!

Let me hear the far, low summons,When the silver winds return;Rills that run and streams that stammer,Goldenwing with his loud hammer,Icy brooks that brawl and clamor,Where the Indian willows burn;Let me hearken to the calling,When the silver winds return,

Till recurring and recurring,Long since wandered and come back,Like a whim of Grieg's or Gounod's,This same self, bird, bud, or Bluenose,Some day I may capture (Who knows?)Just the one last joy I lack,Waking to the far new summons,When the old spring winds come back.

For I have no choice of being,When the sap begins to climb,--Strong insistence, sweet intrusion,Vasts and verges of illusion,--So I win, to time's confusion,The one perfect pearl of time,Joy and joy and joy forever,Till the sap forgets to climb!

Make me over in the morningFrom the rag-bag of the world!Scraps of dream and duds of daring,Home-brought stuff from far sea-faring,Faded colors once so flaring,Shreds of banners long since furled!Hues of ash and glints of glory,In the rag-bag of the world!

Let me taste the old immortalIndolence of life once more;Not recalling nor foreseeing,Let the great slow joys of beingWell my heart through as of yore!Let me taste the old immortalIndolence of life once more!

Give me the old drink for rapture,The delirium to drain,All my fellows drank in plentyAt the Three Score Inns and TwentyFrom the mountains to the main!Give me the old drink for rapture,The delirium to drain!

Only make me over, April,When the sap begins to stir!Make me man or make me woman,Make me oaf or ape or human,Cup of flower or cone of fir;Make me anything but neuterWhen the sap begins to stir!

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 thirdTo 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,

A taster of wine, with an eye for a maidNever too bold, and never afraid,

Never heart-whole, never heart-sick,(These are the things I worship in Dick)

No fidget and no reformer, justA 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 sawAnd gave it the weight of his will for law.

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 silent fleck of the cold new moon;

The sound of the hollow sea's releaseFrom 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.

Ungrateful heart and grudging thanks,His beggar's wisdom only seesHousing and bread and beer enough;He knows no other things than these.

O foolish ones, put by your care!Where wants are many, joys are few;And at the wilding springs of peace,God keeps an open house for you.

But that some Fortunatus' giftIs lying there within his hand,More costly than a pot of pearls,His dullness does not understand.

And so his creature heart is filled;His shrunken self goes starved away.Let him wear brand-new garments still,Who has a threadbare soul, I say.

But there be others, happier few,The vagabondish sons of God,Who know the by-ways and the flowers,And care not how the world may plod.

They idle down the traffic lands,And loiter through the woods with spring;To them the glory of the earthIs but to hear a bluebird sing.

They too receive each one his Day;But their wise heart knows many thingsBeyond the sating of desire,Above the dignity of kings.

One I remember kept his coin,And laughing flipped it in the air;But when two strolling pipe-playersCame by, he tossed it to the pair.

Spendthrift of joy, his childish heartDanced to their wild outlandish bars;Then supperless he laid him downThat night, and slept beneath the stars.

In his ears the phantom chimeOf incommunicable rhyme,He shall chase the fleeting camp-firesOf the Bedouins of Time.

Farer by uncharted ways,Dumb as death to plaint or praise,Unreturning he shall journey,Fellow to the nights and days;

Till upon the outer barStilled the moaning currents are,Till the flame achieves the zenith,Till the moth attains the star,

Till through laughter and through tearsFair the final peace appears,And about the watered pasturesSink to sleep the nomad years!

Oh, the warm wild woodland ways,Deep in dewy grasses,Where the wind-blown shadow strays,Scented as it passes!

Peddler breathing deeply,Toiling into town,With the dusty highwayYou are dusky brown;Hast thou seen by daisied leas,And by rivers flowing,Lilac-ringlets which the breezeLoosens lightly blowing?

Out of yonder wagonPleasant hay-scents float,He who drives it carriesA daisy in his coat:Oh, the English meadows, fairFar beyond all praises!Freckled orchids everywhereMid the snow of daisies!

Now in busy silenceBroods the nightingale,Choosing his love's dwellingIn a dimpled dale;Round the leafy bower they raiseRose-trees wild are springing;Underneath, through the green haze,Bounds the brooklet singing.

And his love is silentAs a bird can be,For the red buds onlyFill the red rose-tree;Just as buds and blossoms blowHe'll begin his tune,When all is green and roses glowUnderneath the moon.

Nowhere in the valleysWill the wind be still,Everything is waving,Wagging at his will:Blows the milkmaid's kirtle cleanWith her hand pressed on it;Lightly o'er the hedge so greenBlows the plowboy's bonnet.

Oh, to be a-roamingIn an English dell!Every nook is wealthy,All the world looks well,Tinted soft the Heavens glow,Over Earth and Ocean,Waters flow, breezes blow,All is light and motion!

They made it for the sandals of the sinner-folk of old;Now the flocks they are scattered and death keeps the fold;But you and I together we will take the road to-day,With the breath in our nostrils, on the King's Highway.

We will take the road together through the morning's golden glow,And we'll dream of those who trod it in the mellowed long ago;We will stop at the Missions where the sleeping padres lay,And we'll bend a knee above them for their souls' sake to pray.

We'll ride through the valleys where the blossom's on the tree,Through the orchards and the meadows with the bird and the bee,And we'll take the rising hills where the manzanitas grow,Past the gray tails of waterfalls where blue violets blow.

Old Conquistadores, O brown priests and all,Give us your ghosts for company when night begins to fall;There's many a road to travel, but it's this road to-day,With the breath of God about us on the King's Highway.

In all climes we pitch our tents,Cronies of the elements,With the secret lords of birthIntimate and free.

All the seaboard knows usFrom Fundy to the Keys;Every bend and every creekOf abundant Chesapeake;Ardise hills and Newport covesAnd the far-off orange groves,Where Floridian oceans break,Tropic tiger seas.

Down the world with Marna,Tarrying there and here!Just as much at home in SpainAs in Tangier or Touraine!Shakespeare's Avon knows us well,And the crags of Neufchatel;And the ancient Nile is fainOf our coming near.

Down the world with Marna,Daughter of the air!Marna of the subtle grace,And the vision in her face!Moving in the measures trodBy the angels before God!With her sky-blue eyes amazeAnd her sea-blue hair!

Marna with the trees' lifeIn her veins a-stir!Marna of the aspen heartWhere the sudden quivers start!Quick-responsive, subtle, wild!Artless as an artless child,Spite of all her reach of art!Oh, to roam with her!

Marna with the wind's will,Daughter of the sea!Marna of the quick disdain,Starting at the dream of stain!At a smile with love aglow,At a frown a statued woe,Standing pinnacled in painTill a kiss sets free!

Down the world with Marna,Daughter of the fire!Marna of the deathless hope,Still alert to win new scopeWhere the wings of life may spreadFor a flight unhazarded!Dreaming of the speech to copeWith the heart's desire!

Marna of the far questAfter the divine!Striving ever for some goalPast the blunder-god's control!Dreaming of potential yearsWhen no day shall dawn in fears!That's the Marna of my soul,Wander-bride of mine!

Then with many an oath and swagger,As a man of great renown,On the board he clapped his dagger,Called for sack and sat him down.

So a while they laughed together;Then he rose and with a frownSighed, "While still 'tis pheasant weather,I must leave thee, Low-lie-down."

So away rode Harum-Scarum;With a song rode out of town;At the Sign o' the Jug-and-JorumWeeping tarried Low-lie-down.

Then this John-a-dreams, in tatters,In his pocket ne'er a crown,Touched her, saying, "Wench, what matters!Dry your eyes and, come, sit down.

"Here's my hand: we'll roam together,Far away from thorp and town.Here's my heart,--for any weather,--And my dreams, too, Low-lie-down.

"Some men call me dreamer, poet:Some men call me fool and clown--What I am but you shall know it,Only you, sweet Low-lie-down."

For a little while she pondered:Smiled: then said, "Let care go drown!"Up and kissed him.... Forth they wandered,John-a-dreams and Low-lie-down.

Through our tiles of greenDo the stars betweenLaugh down from the skies of June,And there's naught to payFor a couch of hayAt the Inn of the Silver Moon.

You laboring lout,Pull out, pull out,With a hand to the creaking tire,For it's many a mileBy path and stileTo the old wife crouched by the fire.But the door is wideIn the hedgerow side,And we ask not bowl nor spoonWhose draught of mustMakes soft the crustAt the Inn of the Silver Moon.

Then, here's to the InnOf the empty bin,To the Host of the trackless dune!And here's to the friendOf the journey's endAt the Inn of the Silver Moon.

Forest aisles would I be winding,Out beyond the gates of Care;And, in dim cathedrals, findingSilence at the shrine of Prayer.

When the mystic night comes stealingThrough my vast, green room afar,Never king had richer ceiling--Beaded bough and yellow star!

Ah, to list the sacred preachingOf the forest's faithful fir,With his strong arms upward reaching--Mighty, trustful worshipper!

Come and learn the joy of living!Come and you will understandHow the sun his gold is givingWith a great, impartial hand!

How the patient pine is climbing,Year by year to gain the sky;How the rill makes sweetest rhyming,Where the deepest shadows lie.

I am nearer the great Giver,Where His handiwork is crude;Friend am I of peak and river,Comrade of old Solitude.

Not for me the city's riot!Not for me the towers of Trade!I would seek the house of Quiet,That the Master Workman made!