Come, brothers all!
Shall we not wend
The blind-way of our prison-world
By sympathy entwined?
Shall we not make
The bleak way for each other's sake
Less rugged and unkind?
O let each throbbing heart repeat
The faint note of another's beat
To lift a chanson for the feet
That stumble down life's checkered street.
Passing ever, early, late,
No fond footsteps seek my gate,
But down the winding road they wend
To some other journey’s end.
Yet,—I would not have them wait
Here within my guarded gate,
Certain footsteps I shall know,
And for them I listen low!
My mother earth I shall forget
When I am sick and like to die;
There, in a breathless chamber set,
My mother earth I shall forget,
These hedges starred with flowers wet,
These muddy roads beneath the sky.
My mother earth I shall forget,
When I am sick and like to die.
We shriek to live, but no man ever lives
Till he has rid the ghost of human breath;
We dream to die, but no man ever dies
Till he has quit the road that runs to death.
I had forgotten how the frogs must sound
After a year of silence, else I think
I should not so have ventured forth alone
At dusk upon this unfrequented road.
I am waylaid by Beauty. Who will walk
Between me and the crying of the frogs?
Oh, savage Beauty, suffer me to pass,
That am a timid woman, on her way
From one house to another!
There was a road ran past our house
Too lovely to explore.
I asked my mother once--she said
That if you followed where it led
It brought you to the milk-man's door.
(That's why I have not traveled more.)
Lend me, a little while, the key
That locks your heavy heart, and I'll give you back —
Rarer than books and ribbons and beads bright to see,
This little Key of Dreams out of my pack.
The road, the road, beyond men's bolted doors,
There shall I walk and you go free of me,
For yours lies North across the moors,
And mine South. To what sea ?
How if we stopped and let our solemn selves go by,
While my gay ghost caught and kissed yours, as ghosts don't do,
And by the wayside this forgotten you and I
Sat, and were twenty-two ?
Give me the key that locks your tired eyes,
And I will lend you this one from my pack,
Brighter than coloured beads and painted books that make men wise
Take it. No, give it back !
When you are tired of the long road and the open sky,
I wish it may be my door that you're passing by :
I wish it may be my hearth where you will sit down
And tell your tales of the land and sea and the strange far town.
Oh, come you in from eastward or come you from the west,
Here's good cheer to greet you and welcome of the best:
Oh come you with your pockets full or come you home poor.
Here's a place by the fireside and an open door.
You'll tell me where you were since, and the things you've seen
Up and down the wide world where so long you've been, —
All the time that I've been here and you far away, —
And then awhile be silent, as good friends may.
And then awhile listen to the wind and rain,
Glad with the wine of life,
Reeling I go my way,
Drunk with the ache of living
And mouthing my drunken song!
Then comes the lucid moment
And the shadow across the lintel;
And I hear the ghostly whisper,
And I glimpse with startled eyes
The Door beyond the doorway,
And I see the small dark house
Where I must sleep.
Then song turns sour on my lips,
And the warmth goes out of my blood,
And I turn me back to the beaker,
And re-draining my cup of dream,
I drown the whispering voices,
The pines shake and the winds wake,
And the dark waves crowd the sky-line!
The birds wheel out on a troubled sky;
The widening road runs white and long,
And the page is turned,
And the world is tired!
So I want no more of twilight sloth,
And I want no more of resting,
And of all the earth I ask no more
Than the green sea, the great sea,
The long road, the white road,
And a change of life to-day!
Of every step I took in pain
I had some gain.
Of every night of blind excess
I had reward of half-dead idleness.
Back to the lone road
With the old load!
But rest at night is sweet
To wounded feet.
And when the day is long,
There is miraculous reward of song.
O PITYING heart be strong!
Our load is heavy and the road is long.
And there is little light to cheer our day
And little kindness on the mourner's way.