Song of the Open Road

Afoot and high-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading me wherever I choose.

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune.
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.

Walt Whitman

Somewhere I Have Never Travelled

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though I have closed myself as fingers,
you open myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if you wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

E. E. Cummings

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
But knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

Sea-Fever

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the seagulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

John Masefield

Exiled

Searching my heart for its true sorrow,
        This is the thing I find to be:
That I am weary of words and people,
        Sick on the city, wanting the sea;

Wanting the sticky, salty sweetness
        Of the strong wind and shattered spray;
Wanting the loud sound and the soft sound
        Of the big surf that breaks all day.

Always before about my dooryard,
        Marking the reach of the winter sea,
Rooted in sand and dragging driftwood,
        Straggled the purple wild sweet pea;

Always I climbed the wave at morning,
        Shook the sand from my shoes at night,
That now am caught beneath great buildings,
        Stricken with noise, confused with light.

If I could hear the green piles groaning
        Under the windy wooden piers,
See again the bobbing barrels,
        And the black sticks that fence the weirs,

If I could see the weedy mussels
        Crusting the wrecked and rotting hulls,
Hear once again the hungry crying
        Overhead, of the wheeling gulls,

Feel once again the shanty straining
        Under the turning of the tide
Fear once again the rising freshet,
        Dread the bell in the fog outside,

I should be happy--that was happy
        All day long on the coast of Maine.
I have a need to hold and handle
        Shells and anchors and ships again!

I should be happy, that am happy
        Never at all since I came here.
I am too long away from water.
        I have a need of water near.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

A Strip of Blue

I do not own an inch of land,
        But all I see is mine,--
The orchard and the mowing-fields,
        The lawns and gardens fine.

The winds my tax-collectors are,
        They bring me tithes divine,--
Wild scents and subtle essences,
        A tribute rare and free;
And, more magnificent than all,
        My window keeps for me
A glimpse of blue immensity,--
        A little strip of sea.

Richer am I than he who owns
        Great fleets and argosies;
I have a share in every ship
        Won by the inland breeze,
To loiter on yon airy road
        Above the apple-trees,
I freight them with my untold dreams;
        Each bears my own picked crew;
And nobler cargoes wait for them
        Than ever India knew,--
My ships that sail into the East
        Across that outlet blue.

Sometimes they seem like living shapes,--
        The people of the sky,--
Guests in white raiment coming down
        From heaven, which is close by;
I call them by familiar names,
        As one by one draws nigh,
So white, so light, so spirit-like,
        From violet mists they bloom!
The aching wastes of the unknown
        Are half reclaimed from gloom,
Since on life's hospitable sea
        All souls find sailing-room.

The ocean grows a wearniness
        With nothing else in sight;
Its east and west, its north and south,
        Spread out from morn till night;
We miss the warm, caressing shore,
        Its brooding shade and light.

Lucy Larcom

The Winds of Fate

One ship drives east and another drives west
      With the selfsame winds that blow.
            'Tis the set of the sails
            And not of the gales
      Which tells us the way to go

Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate,
      as we voyage along through life;
            'Tis the set of a soul
            That decides its goal,
      And not the calm or the strife.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Death of an Old Seaman

We buried him high on a windy hill,
But his soul went out to sea.
I know, for I heard, when all was still,
His sea-soul say to me:

Put no tombstone at my head,
For here I do not make my bed.
Strew no flowers on my grave,
I've gone back to the wind and wave.
Do not, do not weep for me,
For I am happy with my sea.

Langston Hughes

Travel

The railroad track is miles away,
      And the day is loud with voices speaking,
Yet there isn't a train goes by all day
      But I hear its whistle shrieking.

All night there isn't a train goes by,
      Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming,
But I see its cinders red on the sky,
      And hear its engines steaming.

My heart is warm with the friends I make,
      And better friends I'll not be knowing,
Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take,
      No matter where it's going.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Sympathy

I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals--
I know what the caged bird feels!

I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting--
I know why he beats his wing!

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wings is bruised and his bosom sore,--
When he beats his bars and would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his deep heart's core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings--
I know why the caged bird sings!

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Into My Heart an Air that Kills

Into my heart an air that kills
        From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
        What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
        I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
        And cannot come again.

A. E. Housman

Crossing the Bar

Sunset and evening star,
    And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
    When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
    Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
    Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
    And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
    When I embark;

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
    The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
    When I have crossed the bar.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Requiem

Under the wide and starry sky
      Dig the grave and let me lie:
Glad did I live and gladly die,
      And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he long'd to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

Robert Louis Stevenson

We shall not Cease from Exploration

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

T. S. Eliot