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New
Poems
by
Charles G.D. Roberts
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ON
THE ROAD
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EVER
just over the top of the next brown rise
I expect some wonderful thing to flatter my eyes.
"What’s yonder?" I ask of the first
wayfarer I meet.
"Nothing!" he answers, and looks at my
travel-worn feet.
"Only more hills and more hills, like the
many you’ve passed,
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With
rough country between, and a poor enough inn at
the last."
But already I am a-move, for I see he is blind,
And I hate that old grumble I’ve listened
to time out of mind.
I’ve tramped it too long not to know there
is truth in it still,
That lure of the turn of the road, of the crest
of the hill.
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So I
breast me the rise with full hope, well assured
I shall see
Some new prospect of joy, some brave venture a tip-toe
for me.
For I have come far, and confronted the calm
and the strife.
I have fared wide, and bit deep in the apple of
life.
It is sweet at the rind, but oh, sweeter still
at the core;
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whatever be gained, yet the reach of the morrow
is more.
At the crest of the hill I shall hail the new
summits to climb.
The demand of my vision shall beggar the largess
of time.
For I know that the higher I press, the wider
I view,
The more’s to be ventured and visioned,
in worlds that are new.
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20 |
So when my feet, failing, shall stumble in ultimate
dark,
And faint eyes no more the high lift of the pathway
shall mark,
There under the dew I’ll lie down with my
dreams, for I know
What bright hill-tops the morning will show me,
all red in the glow. |
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