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| NOW the joys of the road are chiefly these: | |
| A crimson touch on the hard-wood trees; | |
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| A vagrant’s morning wide and blue, | |
| In early fall, when the wind walks, too; | |
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| A shadowy highway cool and brown, | 5 |
| Alluring up and enticing down | |
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| From rippled water to dappled swamp, | |
| From purple glory to scarlet pomp; | |
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| The outward eye, the quiet will, | |
| And the striding heart from hill to hill; | 10 |
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| The tempter apple over the fence; | |
| The cobweb bloom on the yellow quince; | |
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| The palish asters along the wood,— | |
| A lyric touch of the solitude; | |
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| An open hand, an easy shoe, | 15 |
| And a hope to make the day go through,— | |
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| Another to sleep with, and a third | |
| To wake me up at the voice of a bird; | |
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| A scrap of gossip at the ferry; | |
| A comrade neither glum nor merry, | 20 |
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| Who never defers and never demands, | |
| But, smiling, takes the world in his hands,— | |
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| Seeing it good as when God first saw | |
| And gave it the weight of his will for law. | |
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| And O the joy that is never won, | 25 |
| But follows and follows the journeying sun, | |
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| By marsh and tide, by meadow and stream, | |
| A will-o’-the-wind, a light-o’-dream, | |
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| The racy smell of the forest loam, | |
| When the stealthy, sad-heart leaves go home; | 30 |
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| The broad gold wake of the afternoon; | |
| The silent fleck of the cold new moon; | |
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| The sound of the hollow sea’s release | |
| From stormy tumult to starry peace; | |
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| With only another league to wend; | 35 |
| And two brown arms at the journey’s end! | |
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| These are the joys of the open road— | |
| For him who travels without a load. | |
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