Part 2

Let Me Go Where’er I Will _Ralph Waldo Emerson_ 233 Pippa’s Song _Robert Browning_ 233 The Whisper of Earth _Edward J. O’Brien_ 234 Sunrise _Edgar A. Guest_ 234 Prayer Before Poems _Ann Blackwell Payne_ 235 How Miracles Abound _Clinton Scollard_ 236 Little Things _Orrick Johns_ 236 Clouds and Sky _Lancaster Pollard_ 237 My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold _William Wordsworth_ 238 The Marshes _Sidney Lanier_ 238 Song _John Vance Cheney_ 239 Out-of-Doors _Ethel E. Mannin_ 239 The Whole Duty of Berkshire Brooks _Grace Hazard Conkling_ 240 A Word with A Skylark _Sarah Piatt_ 241 The Perilous Light _Eva Gore-Booth_ 241 Folly _Vivian Yeiser Laramore_ 243 One Blackbird _Harold Monro_ 243 A Rune of Riches _Florence Converse_ 244 The Picture _Frederick O. Sylvester_ 245 “Sic Vita” _William Stanley Braithwaite_ 245 A Blackbird Suddenly _Joseph Auslander_ 246 Credo _Vera Wheatley_ 247 Gospel of the Fields _Arthur Upson_ 247 The Welcome _Arthur Powell_ 248 Angels of the Spring _Robert Stephen Hawkes_ 249 God’s World _Edna St. Vincent Millay_ 249 Rain _Kenneth Slade Alling_ 250 The Lark _Lizette Woodworth Reese_ 250 Farewell _Harry Kemp_ 251 The Comfort of the Stars _Richard Burton_ 251 The Last Hour _Ethel Clifford_ 252 Wasted Hours _Medora Addison_ 253 God is at the Anvil _Lew Sarett_ 253

_The End of The Trail_

Hesperides _Harry Kemp_ 257 Changeless _Martha Haskell Clark_ 257 Homesick _Julia C. R. Dorr_ 258 If All the Skies _Henry van Dyke_ 259 “Gratias Ago” _Geoffrey Howard_ 260 Song of Ballyshannon _Jeanne Robert Foster_ 261 A Song of the Road _Fred G. Bowles_ 263 After Sunset _Grace Hazard Conkling_ 263 The Wanderer _Zoe Akins_ 264 The Trumpet of the Dawn _Clinton Scollard_ 265 Shared _Lucy Larcom_ 265 Up-Hill _Christina Rossetti_ 266 The Epitaph _Katherine Tynan_ 267

_Copyright Acknowledgments_

The editor expresses his keen appreciation to the many poets and their publishers, who have so generously coöperated in the preparation of this volume by granting permission to include copyright material.

All rights to the poems are reserved by the legal holders of the copyrights.

To D. Appleton & Company for “Spring on the Off-Trail,” from _Songs of the Stalwart_, by Grantland Rice.

To _The Atlantic Monthly_, for “Hill Hunger,” and “A Blackbird Suddenly,” by Joseph Auslander.

To Richard A. Badger for “Traveller’s Joy,” “The Sea Wind,” “Countersign,” by Arthur Ketchum.

To Barse & Hopkins for “The Call of the Wild,” by Robert Service.

To Alfred Bartlett, for “September,” “The Gipsy Wedding,” “Gipsy Song,” “Upon Us Vagabonds,” “Song of the Open,” “The Sojourner,” “A la Belle Étoile,” “A Conversation,” “Lavender for Old Loves,” by Sara Hamilton Birchall.

To Ernest Benn, Limited, (London), for “The Blackbird,” “The Lilac,” by Humbert Wolfe.

To Brentano’s, Inc., for “Behind the Closed Eye,” “Farewell,” “The Winds of Life,” “Blind,” “Tell All the World,” “The Going of His Feet,” by Harry Kemp.

To Jonathan Cape, Limited, (London) for “Happy Wind,” “Dreams of the Sea,” by W. H. Davies.

To The Century Company, for “The Immortal,” “As the Tide Comes in,” “The Runaway,” by Cale Young Rice.

To _Christian Endeavor World_ for “Changeless,” by Martha Haskell Clark.

To _The Churchman_, for “Traveller’s Joy,” and “Sea Wind,” by Arthur Ketchum.

To _Cincinnati Times-Star_, for “April Morning,” by George Elliston.

To _Contemporary Verse_, for “Wasted Hours,” by Medora Addison; “Walking at Night,” by Amory Hare; “Rain,” by Kenneth Slade Alling; “Sea Longing,” by Harold Vinal; “Two Old Men,” by Louise Driscoll.

To the Cornhill Publishing Company, for “The House of the Trees,” by Ethelwyn Wetherald.

To _Country Life_ (London) for “Dawn,” by Isabel Butchart.

To Dodd, Mead & Company, for “The Sea,” by Nora Hopper; “I Meant to Do My Work Today,” by Richard Le Gallienne; “Walking at Night,” by Amory Hare.

To George H. Doran Company, for “Traveller’s Rest,” from _Sailor Town_ by C. Fox-Smith, copyright 1919, by George Doran Company, publishers; “Carouse,” “The Best Road of All,” “Renewal,” from _World of Windows_ by Charles Hanson Towne.

To Dorrance & Company for “Deep-Water Men,” “Deep Down,” from _Songs of Men_, by James Stuart Montgomery.

To E. P. Dutton & Company for “The Dandelions,” by Helen Gray Cone; “The Naturalist on a June Sunday,” “ABC’s in Green,” by Leonora Speyer.

To Federal National Bank, Boston, for “The Cry of the Dreamer,” by John Boyle O’Reilly.

To Forbes & Company for “Far From the Madding Crowd,” by Nixon Waterman.

To _Good Housekeeping_ for “The Sea Road,” and “Sea Song,” by Martha Haskell Clark.

To Harcourt, Brace & Company, Inc. for “Sea Call” from _Cross Currents_ by Margaret Widdemer, copyright 1921, by Harcourt, Brace & Company, Inc.

To Harper Bros. for “Afternoon on a Hill,” “God’s World,” “Journey,” by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

To Hodder & Stoughton, Limited, (London), for “Credo,” by Vera Wheatley.

To Henry Holt & Company for “Wind Litany,” by Margaret Widdemer; “God Is At His Anvil,” by Lew Sarett; “The Whole Duty of Berkshire Brooks,” “After Sunset,” by Grace Hazard Conkling.

To Houghton Mifflin Company for “A Strip of Blue” and “Is It Raining, Little Flower,” by Lucy Larcom; “The Singer’s Quest” by Odell Shepard; “Rhodora,” “Flower Chairs,” “Let Me Go Where’er I Will,” by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

To B. W. Huebsch, Inc., for “On the Hill,” by Irene Rutherford McLeod.

To Mitchell Kennerly for “The Wanderer,” by Zoe Atkins.

To Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. for “Little Things,” by Orrick Johns; “The Early Gods,” by Witter Bynner.

To J. L. Lippincott Company, for “April Rain,” by Robert Loveman.

To Little, Brown & Company, for “Autumn,” “The Robin,” “April,” “Indian Summer,” by Emily Dickinson.

To Longmans, Green & Co. (London) for “A Word With a Skylark,” by Sarah Piatt.

To Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. for “May-Lure,” “Dumb in June,” “Comfort of the Stars,” and “Song of the Sea,” by Richard Burton.

To _The Lyric West_ for “The Coming of Dawn,” by Grace C. Dennen.

To The Macmillan Company for “Grace for Gardens,” by Louise Driscoll; “Sea-Fever,” “A Wanderer’s Song,” by John Masefield; “Up a Hill and a Hill,” “Gipsy Feet,” by Fannie Stearns Davis; “The Sweet, Low Speech of the Rain,” by Ella Higginson.

To Macmillan & Co. Ltd. (London) for “My Garden,” by T. E. Brown.

To McClelland & Stewart, Toronto, Limited, for “Wanderlust,” by Isabel Mackay.

To Thomas B. Mosher for “Birds of the Air They Sing it,” and “The Charm is Working Now,” by John Vance Cheney, “The Undersong,” by Fiona Macleod, “The Lark” and “April Weather,” by Lizette Woodworth Reese.

To L. C. Page & Company for “Gray Rocks and Grayer Sea,” “Afoot,” by Charles G. D. Roberts.

To _Poetry_ for “Early Morn at Barges,” by Hermann Hagedorn; “Ellis Park,” by Helen Hoyt.

To G. P. Putnam’s Sons, for “The Country Faith,” “Spring,” “All the Lanes are Lyric,” from _The Country Muse_ by Norman Gale; “April,” “The Gipsying,” “The Green Inn,” “A Song of Autumn,” “A City Voice,” “The Poplars,” “The Hills,” “A Morning,” by Theodosia Garrison.

To Reilly & Lee Co., for “The Call,” “God Made This Day For Me,” “Fishing,” “City Weary,” “The Vagabond,” by Edgar A. Guest.

To _The Roycroft Magazine_ for “The Road that Leads to Home,” by Ethel E. Mannin.

To Charles Scribner’s Sons for “The Road That Leads to Nowhere,” by Corrinne Roosevelt Robinson; “Homesick,” by Julia C. R. Dorr; “The Wind,” by John Galsworthy; “The Trees and the Master” and “Marshes of Glynn” (Extract), by Sidney Lanier; “Trees,” “Of All the Skies,” by Henry van Dyke.

To Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd. (London), for “Farewell,” “The Turn of the Year,” and “The Epitaph,” by Katherine Tynan; “Wanderthirst,” by Gerald Gould.

To Small, Maynard & Co., for “The Whisper of Earth,” by Edward J. O’Brien; “Clover,” by John B. Tabb; “Camping Song,” “Trees,” “April Weather,” “An Autumn Garden,” “The Cry of the Hillborn,” “Daisies,” “The Joys of the Road,” “A Vagabond’s Song,” “Spring Song,” “Marigolds,” “A More Ancient Mariner,” “The Mendicants,” “A Song of the Sea,” “St. Bartholomew’s on the Hill,” “The Deserted Pasture,” by Bliss Carman; “Comrades” (Extracts), “Spring” (Extracts), “The Faun,” “Short Beach,” “Hunting Song,” “Seaward” (Extracts), by Richard Hovey.

To the _Boston Evening Transcript_ for “Prayer Before Poems,” by Anne Blackwell Payne.

To _The Christian Century_ for “Spring’s Answer,” by Edwin Osgood Grover.

To _Country Life in America_ for “Down East and Up Along,” by Edwin Osgood Grover.

To _The Chicago Tribune_ for “Sea Magic.”

To Yale University Press, for “Overtones,” from _In April Once_, by William Alexander Percy; and “Good Company,” from _Blue Smoke_ by Karle Wilson Baker.

To Jonathan Cape, Ltd. for “Happy Wind” and “Dreams of the Sea,” by W. H. Davies.

The following individuals have also given their permission for the use of copyright material, and the editor’s thanks are due them personally.

To Joseph Auslander for “Hill-Hunger,” “A Blackbird Suddenly.”

To Kendall Banning for “Wander-Lure.”

To Katherine Lee Bates for “Gipsy-Heart.”

To C. G. Blanden for “A Song the Grass Sings.”

To William Stanley Braithwaite for “Sic Vita” from _The House Of Falling Leaves_.

To Dana Burnet for “The Road to Vagabondia.”

To Richard Burton for “May-Lure,” “Dumb in June,” (Extracts) “Comfort of the Stars,” “Song of the Sea.”

To Witter Bynner for “The Early Gods” and “A Phœbe Bird.”

To Stephen Chalmers for “The Tree-Top Road.”

To Eugene F. Clark for “The Sea Road,” “Changeless,” “Black Ashes,” “Sea Song,” by Martha Haskell Clark.

To Mary Carolyn Davies for “Comrades of the Trail.”

To Babette Deutsch for “The Hound.”

To Louise Driscoll, for “The Spring Market” and “Two Old Men.”

To Ella Elizabeth Egbert for “Days Like These.”

To George Elliston for “April Morning.”

To Jeanne Robert Foster for “Song of Ballyshannon.”

To Hamlin Garland for “The Toil of the Trail,” “Do You Fear the Wind?”

To Charlotte Perkins Gilman for “Tree-Feelings.”

To Eva Gore-Booth, “The Perilous Light,” from manuscript; “The Waves of Breffny.”

To Gerald Gould for “Wanderthirst.”

To Arthur Guiterman for “The Hills” from _The Mirthful Lyre_.

To Hermann Hagedorn, for “Early Morning at Bargis.”

To Ella Higginson for “The Sweet Low Speech of the Rain.”

To Julian Hovey for “Seaward,” (Extracts) by Richard Hovey.

To Arthur Ketchum for “The Sea-Wind,” “Traveller’s Joy.”

To Leslie Nelson Jennings for “Highways.”

To Orrick Johns, for “Little Things.”

To Ruth Kauffman for “Vagabond.”

To Theda Kenyon for “In the Garden.”

To Georgiana Goddard King for “Song.”

To Louis Loveman for “April Rain” by Robert Loveman.

To Ethel E. Mannin for “Ship-Love,” “The Road that Leads to Home,” “The Secret Voices,” “Out-of-Doors.”

To Edwin Markham for “A Prayer.”

To John Steven McGroarty for “The Port o’ Heart’s Desire” and “The King’s Highway.”

To Edward J. O’Brien for “The Whisper of Earth.”

To Lancaster Pollard for “Denial,” “Morning Song,” “April’s Coming,” “Clouds and Sky.”

To Lizette Woodworth Reese for “The Lark.”

To Cole Young Rice for “As the Tide Comes In,” “The Mystic,” “The Runaway,” “The Immortal.”

To Jessie B. Rittenhouse for “The Green Tree in the Fall.”

To Clinton Scollard for “Streams,” “Sunflowers,” “April Music,” “Song in March,” “The Trumpet of the Dawn.”

To May Riley Smith for “Sorrow in a Garden,” “The Tree-Top Road.”

To Leonora Speyer for “A B C’s in Green,” and “The Naturalist on a June Sunday.”

To W. G. Tinckom-Fernandez for “Road Song,” “The Beloved Vagabond.”

To Charles Hanson Towne for “Carouse,” “The Best Road of All,” “Renewal.”

To Katherine Tynan for “Farewell,” “The Turn of the Year” and “The Epitaph.”

To Vera Wheatley for “Credo.”

To Humbert Wolfe for “The Lilac,” “The Blackbird.”

To William Watson for “April, April.”

_The Lure of the Road_

_I, too, have heard the insistent call of bird and wind and sun; I, too, have heard the little brooks low calling as they run; I, too, have heard the summons far, of sea gulls in the rain-- And lo, my heart is home once more, here on the coast of Maine._

E. O. G.

_A Wanderer’s Song_

A wind’s in the heart of me, a fire’s in my heels, I am tired of brick and stone and rumbling wagon-wheels; I hunger for the sea’s edge, the limits of the land, Where the wild old Atlantic is shouting on the sand.

Oh, I’ll be going, leaving the noises of the street, To where a lifting foresail-foot is yanking at the sheet; To a windy, tossing anchorage where yawls and ketches ride, Oh, I’ll be going, going, until I meet the tide.

And first I’ll hear the sea-wind, the mewing of the gulls, The clucking, sucking of the sea about the rusty hulls, The songs at the capstan in the hooker warping out, And then the heart of me’ll know I’m there or thereabout.

Oh, I’m tired of brick and stone, the heart of me is sick, For windy green, unquiet sea, the realm of Moby Dick; And I’ll be going, going, from the roaring of the wheels, For a wind’s in the heart of me, a fire’s in my heels.

_John Masefield_

_The Singer’s Quest_

I’ve been wandering, listening for a song, Dreaming of a melody, all my life long.... The lilting tune that God sang to rock the tides asleep, And crooned above the cradled stars before they learned to creep.

Oh, there was laughter in it and many a merry chime, Before He had turned moralist, grown old before His time, And He was happy, trolling out His great blithe-hearted tune, Before He slung the little earth beneath the sun and moon.

But I know that somewhere that song is rolling on, Like flutes along the midnight, like trumpets in the dawn; It throbs across the sunset and stirs the poplar tree And rumbles in the long low thunder of the sea.

* * * * *

First-love sang me one note and heart-break taught me two, A child has told me three notes, and soon I’ll know it through; And when I stand before the Throne I’ll hum it low and sly, Watching for a great light of welcome in His eye, ...

“Put a white raiment on him and a harp into his hand, And golden sandals on his feet and tell the saints to stand A little farther off unless they wish to hear the truth, For this blessed lucky sinner is going to sing about my youth!”

_Odell Shepard_

_The Toil of the Trail_

What have I gained by the toil of the trail? I know and know well. I have found once again the lore I had lost In the loud city’s hell.

I have broadened my hand to the cinch and the axe, I have laid my flesh to the rain; I was hunter and trailer and guide; I have touched the most primitive wildness again.

I have threaded the wild with the stealth of the deer, No eagle is freer than I; No mountain can thwart me, no torrent appall, I defy the stern sky. So long as I live these joys will remain, I have touched the most primitive wildness again.

_Hamlin Garland_

_Two Old Men_

_Sit-by-the-Fire_:

Men travel far and far away To come home on a happy day; And even they whom the roads call Who never know a home at all, They dream, I think, of roads that end At four walls with a fire and friend!

_Foot-loose_:

I’ve never seen a hill but I Have dreamed a hill behind it, Nor ever watched a falling star Without the hope I’d find it, And all the islands of the sea Have known my name and called to me!

_Sit-by-the-Fire_:

I have planted apple trees And eaten at my pleasure, My house is full of memories For an old man to treasure. This I have and that I have, And you may see them standing, Silver in the dining room, An old clock on the landing!

_Foot-loose_:

I have neither house nor tree, Nor heirs alert and knowing, The four roads of eternity Are ways I would be going. Vagabonding in the skies I will not ask for Paradise!

_Louise Driscoll_

_The Best Road of All_

I like a road that leads away to prospects white and fair, A road that is an ordered road, like a nun’s evening prayer; But best of all I love a road that leads to God knows where.

You come upon it suddenly--you cannot seek it out; It’s like a secret still unheard and never noised about; But when you see it, gone at once is every lurking doubt.

It winds beside some rushing stream where aspens lightly quiver; It follows many a broken field by many a shining river; It seems to lead you on and on, forever and forever!

You tramp along its dusty way beneath the shadowy trees, And hear beside you chattering birds or happy booming bees, And all around you golden sounds, the green leaves’ litanies.

And here’s a hedge and there’s a cot; and then, strange, sudden turns-- A dip, a rise, a little glimpse where the red sunset burns; A bit of sky at evening time, the scent of hidden ferns.

A winding road, a loitering road, the finger mark of God, Traced when the Maker of the world leaned over ways untrod. See! Here He smiled His glowing smile, and lo, the goldenrod!

I like a road that wanders straight; the King’s highway is fair, And lovely are the sheltered lanes that take you here and there; But best of all I love a road that leads to God knows where.

_Charles Hanson Towne_

_The Cry of the Dreamer_

I am tired of planning and toiling In the crowded hives of men, Heart-weary of building and spoiling, And spoiling and building again, And I long for the dear old river, Where I dreamed my youth away; For a dreamer lives forever, And a toiler dies in a day.

I am sick of the showy seeming, Of life that is half a lie; Of the faces lined with scheming In the throng that hurries by; From the sleepless thought’s endeavor I would go where the children play; For a dreamer lives forever, And a thinker dies in a day.

I can feel no pride, but pity, For the burdens the rich endure; There is nothing sweet in the city But the patient lives of the poor. Oh, the little hands too skillful, And the child-mind choked with weeds! The daughter’s heart grown willful And the father’s heart that bleeds!

No! No! from the streets’ rude bustle, From trophies of mart and stage, I would fly to the wood’s low rustle And the meadows’ kindly page. Let me dream as of old by the river, And be loved for my dreams alway; For a dreamer lives forever, And a toiler dies in a day.

_John Boyle O’Reilly_

_Highways_

Who’s learned the lure of trodden ways, And walked them up and down, May love a steeple in a mist, But cannot love a town.

Who’s worn a bit of purple once Can never, never lie All smothered in a little box When stars are in the sky.

Who’s sipped old port in Venice glass May thirst for better brew--He’s drunk an amber wine of sun And wet his mouth with dew!

Who’s ground the grist of trodden ways-- The gray dust and the brown-- May love red tiling two miles off-- But cannot love a town.

_Leslie Nelson Jennings_

_Afoot and Light-Hearted_

Afoot 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.

_Walt Whitman_

_The Path that Leads to Nowhere_

There’s a path that leads to Nowhere In a meadow that I know, Where an inland island rises And the stream is still and slow; There it wanders under willows And beneath the silver green Of the birches’ silent shadows Where the early violets lean.

Other pathways lead to Somewhere, But the one I love so well Had no end and no beginning-- Just the beauty of the dell, Just the windflowers and the lilies Yellow striped as adder’s tongue, Seem to satisfy my pathway As it winds their sweets among.

There I go to meet the Springtime, When the meadow is aglow, Marigolds amid the marshes,-- And the stream is still and slow.-- There I find my fair oasis, And with care-free feet I tread For the pathway leads to Nowhere, And the blue is overhead!

All the ways that lead to Somewhere Echo with the hurrying feet Of the Struggling and the Striving, But the way I find so sweet Bids me dream and bids me linger, Joy and Beauty are its goal,-- On the path that leads to Nowhere I have sometimes found my soul!

_Corinne Roosevelt Robinson_

_City-Weary_

Come, let’s get out of here! Out of the din of it, Out of the bickering, out of the sin of it, Out of the smoke of it, out of the noise of it, Out of the pitiful, lean, leering joys of it. Come on, let’s go To a hilltop I know, Where the air is washed clean, And the trees are a-gleam With the gold of the sun, And there’s naught to be done Save to lie there and look At life’s beauties and dream.

Come, let’s get out of here! Out of the stress of it, Out of the paint and the powder and dress of it, Out of the cry at the loss or the gain of it, Out of the hurt and the grief and the pain of it. Let’s slip away To the fields for a day, Where there is nothing On counters and shelves, Nothing to strive for, To work or contrive for, Let’s leave the city And just be ourselves.