Poems About Travel

Give to me the life I love,Let the lave go by me,Give the jolly heaven aboveAnd the byway nigh me.Bed in the bush with stars to see,Bread I dip in the river--There's the life for a man like me,There's the life for ever.

Let the blow fall soon or late,Let what will be o'er me;Give the face of earth aroundAnd the road before me.

In the highlands, in the country places,Where the old plain men have rosy faces, And the young fair maidens Quiet eyes;Where essential silence cheers and blesses,And for ever in the hill-recesses Her more lovely music Broods and dies--

O to mount again where erst I haunted;Where the old red hills are bird-enchanted, And the low green meadows Bright with sward;And when even dies, the million-tinted,And the night has come, and planets glinted, Lo, the valley hollow Lamp-bestarr’d!

O to dream, O to awake and wanderThere, and with delight to take and render, Through the trance of silence, Quiet breath!Lo! for there, among the flowers and grasses,Only the mightier movement sounds and passes; Only winds and rivers, Life and death.

I will make you brooches and toys for your delightOf bird-song at morning and star-shine at night.I will make a palace fit for you and me,Of green days in forests and blue days at sea.

I will make my kitchen, and you shall keep your room,Where white flows the river and bright blows the broom,And you shall wash your linen and keep your body whiteIn rainfall at morning and dewfall at night.

And this shall be for music when no one else is near,The fine song for singing, the rare song to hear!That only I remember, that only you admire,Of the broad road that stretches and the roadside fire.

Sing me a song of a lad that is gone;Say, could that lad be I?Merry of soul he sailed on a dayOver the sea to Skye.

Mull was astern, Rum on the port,Eigg on the starboard bow;Glory of youth glowed in his soul:Where is that glory now?

Sing me a song of a lad that is gone;Say, could that lad be I?Merry of soul he sailed on a dayOver the sea to Skye.

Give me again all that was there,Give me the sun that shone!Give me the eyes, give me the soul,Give me the lad that's gone!

Sing me a song of a lad that is gone;Say, could that lad be I?Merry of soul he sailed on a dayOver the sea to Skye.

Billow and breeze, islands and seas,Mountains of rain and sun,All that was good, all that was fair,All that was me is gone.

Trusty, dusky, vivid, true,With eyes of gold and bramble-dew,Steel true and blade straightThe great Artificer made my mate.

Honor, anger, valor, fire,A love that life could never tire,Death quench, or evil stir,The mighty Master gave to her.

Teacher, tender comrade, wife,A fellow-farer true through life,Heart-whole and soul-free,The August Father gave to me.

For a name unknown,Whose fame unblownSleeps in the hills For ever and aye;

For her who hearsThe stir of the yearsGo by on the wind By night and day;

And heeds no thingOf the needs of spring,Of autumn’s wonder Or winter’s chill;For one who seesThe great sun freeze,As he wanders a-cold From hill to hill;

And all her heartIs a woven partOf the flurry and drift Of whirling snow;

For the sake of twoSad eyes and true,And the old, old love So long ago.

Where's the lamp that Hero lit Once to call Leander home?Equal Time hath shovelled it 'Neath the wrack of Greece and Rome.Neither wait we any moreThat worn sail which Argo bore.

Dust and dust of ashes close All the Vestal Virgins' care;And the oldest altar shows But an older darkness there.Age-encamped OblivionTenteth every light that shone!

SWALLOWS travel to and fro,And the great winds come and go,And the steady breezes blow, Bearing perfume, bearing love.Breezes hasten, swallows fly,Towered clouds forever ply,And at noonday, you and I See the same sunshine above.

Dew and rain fall everywhere,Harvests ripen, flowers are fair,And the whole round earth is bare To the moonshine and the sun;And the live air, fanned with wings,Bright with breeze and sunshine, bringsInto contact distant things, And makes all the countries one.

Let us wander where we will,Something kindred greets us still;Something seen on vale or hill Falls familiar on the heart;So, at scent or sound or sight,Severed souls by day and nightTremble with the same delight— Tremble, half the world apart.

The sun is not a-bed, when IAt night upon my pillow lie;Still round the earth his way he takes,And morning after morning makes.

While here at home, in shining day,We round the sunny garden play,Each little Indian sleepy-headIs being kissed and put to bed.

And when at eve I rise from tea,Day dawns beyond the Atlantic Sea;And all the children in the westAre getting up and being dressed.

I TRAVEL as a phantom now,For people do not wish to seeIn flesh and blood so bare a bough As Nature makes of me.

And thus I visit bodilessStrange gloomy households often at odds,And wonder if Man’s consciousness Was a mistake of God’s.

And next I meet you, and I pause,And think that if mistake it were,As some have said, O then it was One that I well can bear!

Inclytus hic haeres magni requiescit Oeni, Confessas tantum mente, manuque, patrem;Servilem tuti cultum contempsit agelli,Et petiit terras, per freta longa, novas.