Travel and Horizons

I have discovered that most of the beauties of travel are due to the strange hours we keep to see them.

I shall set forth for somewhere, I shall make the reckless choice Some say when they are in voice And tossing so as to scare The white clouds over them on, I shall have less to say, But I shall be gone.

“Is there anybody there?” said the Traveler, Knocking on the moonlit door; And his horse in the silence champed the grasses Of the forest’s ferny floor.

Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges— Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!

They change their skies above them, But not their hearts that roam.

There be triple ways to take, of the eagle or the snake, Or the way of a man with a maid; But the sweetest way to me is a ship’s upon the sea In the heel of the Northeast Trade.

Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst, Where there aren’t no Ten Commandments, an’ a man can raise a thirst.

By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin’ eastward to the sea, There’s a Burma girl a-settin’, and I know she thinks o’ me; For the wind is in the palm trees, and the temple bells they say: “Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!”

On the road to Mandalay, Where the flyin’ fishes play, An’ the dawn comes up like thunder outer China ’crost the Bay!

I long for Europe of the ancient parapets. 8

The untented Kosmos my abode, I pass, a willful stranger; My mistress still the open road And the bright eyes of danger.

Wealth I ask not, hope nor love, Nor a friend to know me; All I ask, the heaven above And the road below me.

For you dream you are crossing the Channel, and tossing about in a steamer from Harwich— Which is something between a large bathing machine and a very small second-class carriage.

What is that sad, dark island?—It is Cythera, They tell us, a country famous in song, Banal Eldorado of all the old bachelors. Look! after all, it is a poor land! 8

A batter’d, wreck’d old man, Thrown on this savage shore, far from home, Pent by the sea and dark rebellious brows, twelve dreary months, Sore, stiff with many toils, sicken’d and nigh to death, I take my way along the island’s edge, Venting a heavy heart.

We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger, We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O pioneers!

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, Healthy, free, the world before me, The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose. Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune.

A solitary sail that rises White in the blue mist on the foam— What is it in far lands it prizes? What does it leave behind at home?

What’s become of Waring Since he gave us all the slip?

Open my heart, and you will see Graved inside of it, “Italy.”

Some unsuspected isle in far-off seas.

Once more upon the waters, yet once more! And the waves bound beneath me as a steed That knows his rider!

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow followed free; We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea.

The ship was cheered, the harbor cleared, Merrily did we drop Below the kirk, below the hill, Below the lighthouse top.