My father was a piper's son,
He used to play when day was done,
But all the tune that he could play
Was "Over the hills and far away."

The birds that wing their way through
the blue

Direct my feet to the strange and new;
And the open road lies straight and free,
It calls and calls till it tortures me.

G. G. King

I follow the silver spears flung from the hands of dawn. Through silence, through singing of stars, I journey on

and on.

Ethna Carbery

I love and understand
One joy: with staff and scrip
To walk a wild west land,
The winds my fellowship.

Lionel Johnson

Ο

THE JOY OF THE ROAD

VERSES

FROM The Canticle of the Road

I

N the open road, with the wind at heel
Who is keen of scent and yelping loud,
Stout heart and bounding blood we feel,
Who follow fancy till day has bowed

Her forehead pure to her evening prayer
And drawn the veil on her wind-blown hair.
Free with the hawk and the wind we stride
The open road, and the world is wide
From rim to rim, and the skies hung high,
And room between for a hawk to fly
With tingling wing and lust of the eye.

II

Broad morning, blue morning, oh, jubilant wind!
Lord, Thou hast made our souls to be

Fluent and yearning long, as the sea
Yearns after the moon, and follows her,
With boom of waves and sibilant purr,
Round this world and past and o'er
All waste sea-bottoms and curving shore,
Only once more and again to find
The same sea-bottoms and beaten beach,
The same sweet moon beyond his reach
And drawing him onward as before.

Arthur Colton

SONG OF THE OPEN ROAD

I

A FOOT and light-hearted, I take to the open

road,

Healthy, free, the world before me,

The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune - I myself am good-fortune;

Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,

Strong and content I travel the open road.

I do not want the constellations any nearer;
I know they are very well where they are;

I know they suffice for those who belong to them.

(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens; I carry them, men and women-I carry them with me wherever I go;

I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them;

I am fill'd with them, and I will fill them in return.)

II

You road I enter upon and look around! I believe you are not all that is here;

I believe that much unseen is also here.

Here the profound lesson of reception, neither preference or denial;

The black with his woolly head, the felon, the diseas'd, the illiterate person, are not de

nied;

The birth, the hasting after the physician, the beggar's tramp, the drunkard's stagger, the laughing party of mechanics,

The escaped youth, the rich person's carriage, the fop, the eloping couple,

The early market-man, the hearse, the moving of furniture into the town, the return back from the town,

They pass I also pass-anything passes none can be interdicted;

None but are accepted-none but are dear to

me.

III

You air that serves me with breath to speak! You objects that call from diffusion my meanings, and give them shape!

You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers!

You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides!

I think you are latent with unseen existences you are so dear to me.

You flagg'd walks of the cities! you strong curbs at the edges!

You ferries! you planks and posts of wharves! you timber-lined sides! you distant ships! You rows of houses! you window-pierced façades! you roofs!

You porches and entrances! you copings and iron guards!

You windows whose transparent shells might expose so much!

You doors and ascending steps! you arches!

You gray stones of interminable pavements! you trodden crossings!

From all that has been near you I believe you have imparted to yourselves, and now would impart the same secretly to me;

From the living and the dead I think you have peopled your impassive surfaces and the spirits thereof would be evident and amicable with me.

IV

The earth expanding right hand and left hand, The picture alive, every part in its best light, The music falling in where it is wanted, and stopping where it is not wanted,

The cheerful voice of the public road - the gay fresh sentiment of the road.

O highway I travel! O public road! do you say to me, Do not leave me?

Do you say, Venture not? If you leave me, you are lost?

Do you say, I am already prepared - I am wellbeaten and undenied - adhere to me?

O public road! I say back, I am not afraid to leave you yet I love you;

You express me better than I can express myself;

You shall be more to me than my poem.