And when even dies, the million-tinted,

And the night has come, and planets glinted,
Lo, the valley hollow

Lamp-bestarred!

O to dream, O to awake and wander

There, and with delight to take and render,
Through the trance of silence,

Quiet breath!

Lo! for there, among the flowers and grasses,
Only the mightier movement sounds and passes;
Only winds and rivers,

Life and Death.

Robert Louis Stevenson [1850-1894]

THE SONG MY PADDLE SINGS

WEST Wind, blow from your prairie nest,
Blow from the mountains, blow from the west.
The sail is idle, the sailor too;

O wind of the west, we wait for you!
Blow, blow!

I have wooed you so,

But never a favor you bestow.

You rock your cradle the hills between,
But scorn to notice my white lateen.

I stow the sail and unship the mast:
I wooed you long, but my wooing's past;
My paddle will lull you into rest:

O drowsy wind of the drowsy west,
Sleep, sleep!

By your mountains steep,

Or down where the prairie grasses sweep,
Now fold in slumber your laggard wings,
For soft is the song my paddle sings.

Be strong, O paddle! be brave, canoe!
The reckless waves you must plunge into.

Reel, reel,

The Gipsy Trail

On your trembling keel,

But never a fear my craft will feel.

We've raced the rapids; we're far ahead:

The river slips through its silent bed.

Sway, sway,

As the bubbles spray

And fall in tinkling tunes away.

And up on the hills against the sky,

A fir tree rocking its lullaby

Swings, swings,

Its emerald wings,

Swelling the song that my paddie sings.

1629

E. Pauline Johnson [1862-1913]

THE GIPSY TRAIL

THE white moth to the closing vine,
The bee to the open clover,

And the gipsy blood to the gipsy blood

Ever the wide world over.

Ever the trail held true,

Over the world and under the world,
And back at the last to you.

Out of the dark of the gorgio camp,
Out of the grime and the gray
(Morning waits at the end of the world),
Gipsy, come away!

The wild boar to the sun-dried swamp,

The red crane to her reed,

And the Romany lass to the Romany lad
By the tie of a roving breed.

Morning waits at the end of the world

Where winds unhaltered play,

Nipping the flanks of their plunging ranks,
Till the white sea-horses neigh.

The pied snake to the rifted rock,
The buck to the stony plain,

And the Romany lass to the Romany lad,

And both to the road again.

Both to the road again, again!
Out of a clean sea-track-
Follow the cross of the gipsy trail
Over the world and back!

Follow the Romany patteran

North where the blue bergs sail,

And the bows are gray with the frozen spray,
And the masts are shod with mail.

Follow the Romany patteran

Sheer to the Austral Light,

Where the besom of God is the wild west wind,

Sweeping the sea-floors white.

Follow the Romany patteran
West to the sinking sun,

Till the junk-sails lift through the houseless drift,

And the east and the west are one.

Follow the Romany patteran

East where the silence broods

By a purple wave on an opal beach
In the hush of the Mahim woods.

The wild hawk to the wind-swept sky,
The deer to the wholesome wold,

And the heart of a man to the heart of a maid,
As it was in the days of old.

The Footpath Way

The heart of a man to the heart of a maid

Light of my tents, be fleet!

Morning waits at the end of the world,

And the world is all at our feet!

Rudyard Kipling [1865

1631

WANDERLUST

BEYOND the East the sunrise, beyond the West the sea,
And East and West the wanderlust that will not let me be;
It works in me like madness, dear, to bid me say good-by!
For the seas call and the stars call, and oh, the call of the sky!

I know not where the white road runs, nor what the blue

hills are,

But man can have the sun for friend, and for his guide a star; And there's no end of voyaging when once the voice is heard, For the river calls and the road calls, and oh, the call of a bird!

Yonder the long horizon lies, and there by night and day
The old ships draw to home again, the young ships sail away;
And come I may, but go I must, and if men ask you why,
You may put the blame on the stars and the sun and the
white road and the sky!

Gerald Gould [18

THE FOOTPATH WAY

THE winding road lies white and bare,
Heavy in dust that takes the glare;
The thirsty hedgerows and parched grass
Dream of a time when no road was.

Beyond, the fields are full in view,
Heavy in herbage and in dew;

The great-eyed kine browse thankfully;
Come, take the footpath way with me!

This stile, where country lovers tryst,
Where many a man and maid have kissed,
Invites us sweetly, and the wood
Beckons us to her solitude.

Leave men and lumbering wains behind,
And dusty roads, all blank and blind;
Come tread on velvet and on silk,
Damasked with daisies, white as milk.

Those dryads of the wood, that some
Call the wild hyacinths, now are come,
And hold their revels in a night
Of emerald flecked with candle-light.

The fountains of the meadows play,
This is the wild bee's holiday;

When summer-snows have sweetly dressed
The pasture like a wedding-guest,

By fields of beans that shall eclipse
The honey on the rose's lips,

With woodruff and the new hay's breath,
And wild thyme sweetest in her death,

Skirting the rich man's lawn and hall,
The footpath way is free to all;
For us his pinks and roses blow:
Fling him thanksgiving ere we go!

By orchards yet in rosy veils,
By hidden nests of nightingales,

Through lonesome valleys where all day
The rabbit people scurry and play,

The footpath sets her tender lure.
This is the country for the poor;
The high-road seeks the crowded sea;
Come, take the footpath way with me!
Katherine Tynan [1861-