Part 3 (1/2)

MORNING ROAD SONG

Let me have my fill of the wide blue air And the emerald cup of the sea And a wandering road blown bright and bare And it is enough for me.

The love of a man is a goodly thing And the love of a woman is true, But give me a rollicking song to sing And a love that is always new.

For I am a rover and cannot stay And blithe at heart am I When free and afoot on a winding way Beneath the great blue sky.

EVENING ROAD SONG

It's a long road and a steep road And a weary road to climb.

The air bites chill on the windy hill.

At home it is firelight time.

The sunset pales ... along the vales The cottage candles s.h.i.+ne And twinkle through the early dew.

Thank G.o.d that one is mine!

And dark and late she'll watch and wait Beyond the last long mile For the weary beat of homing feet With her wise and patient smile.

WINDY MORNING

Dawn with a jubilant shout Leaps on the s.h.i.+vering sea And puffs the last pale planet out And scatters the flame-bright clouds about Like the leaves of a frost-bitten tree.

Does a gold seed split the rosy husk?

Nay, a sword ... a s.h.i.+eld ... a spear!

The kindler of all fires that burn Deep in the day's cerulean urn Rides up across the clear And tramples down the cowering dusk Like a strong-browed charioteer.

Blow out and far away The dim, the dull, the dun; Prosper the crimson, blight the gray, And blow us clean of yesterday, Stern morning fair begun, Till the earth is an opal bathed in dew, Flas.h.i.+ng with emerald, gold, and blue, Held where the skies wash through and through High up against the sun.

(_Catalina Island_, 1913)

THE GRAVE OF Th.o.r.eAU

Brown earth, blue sky, and solitude,-- Three things he loved, three things he wooed Lifelong; and now no rhyme can tell How ultimately all is well With his wild heart that wors.h.i.+pped G.o.d's Epiphany in crumbling sods And like an oak brought all its worth Back to the kindly mother earth.

But something starry, something bold, Eludes the clutch of dark and mould,-- Something that will not wholly die Out of the old familiar sky.

No spell in all the lore of graves Can still the plash of Walden waves Or wash away the azure stain Of Concord skies from heart and brain.

Clear psalteries and faint citoles Only recall the orioles Fluting reveille to the morn Across the acres of the corn He wanders somewhere lonely still Along a solitary hill And sits by ever lonelier fires Remote from heaven's bright rampires, A hermit in the blue Beyond Beside some dim celestial pond With beans to hoe and wood to hew And halcyon days to loiter through And angel visitors, no doubt, Who shut the air and sunlight out.