The Home Book of Verse Volume Iii Part 81

But that some Fortunatus' gift Is 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 G.o.d, 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 earth Is but to hear a bluebird sing.

They too receive each one his Day; But their wise heart knows many things Beyond 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-players Came by, he tossed it to the pair.

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

Bliss Carman [1861-1929]

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 heart 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 hoa.r.s.e 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 d.i.c.kon 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 sc.r.a.p 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 maid Never too bold, and never afraid,

Never heart-whole, never heart-sick, (These are the things I worship in d.i.c.k)

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 G.o.d first saw And 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 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 [1861-1929]

THE SONG OF THE FOREST RANGER

Oh, to feel the fresh breeze blowing From lone ridges yet untrod!