Newspaper History

Tag: Bliss Carman

  • The Joys of the Road

    From the Albuquerque Morning Journal, March 25, 1915. By Bliss Carman.

    Now the joys of the road are chiefly these,
    A crimson touch on the hardwood trees;

    A vagrant morning wide and blue,
    In early fall, when the wind walks, too;

    A shadowy highway cool and brown,
    Alluring up and enticing down;

    From ripply water to dappled swamp,
    From purple glory to scarlet pomp;

    The outward eye, the quiet will,
    And the striding heart from hill to hill.

    An idle moon, a bubbling spring,
    The sea in the pine-tops murmuring;

    A scrap of gossip at the ferry,
    A comrade neither glum nor merry;

    Asking nothing, revealing naught,
    But minting the words from a fund of thought.

    These are the joys of the open road,
    For him who travels without a load.

  • Psyche

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, February 14, 1915. By Bliss Carman.

    Tender as the wind of summer
        That wanders among the flowers,
    Down worldly aisles with enchanted smiles
        She leads the mysterious hours.

    This is immortal Psyche,
        The winged soul of man—
    Ardor unspent and innocent
        As when the world began.

    Out of the ancient silence
        Over the darkling earth,
    As streamers swim on the sunrise rim,
        She moves between sorrow and mirth.

    The impulse of things eternal,
        The transport hidden in clay,
    Like a dancing beam on a noonday stream
        She signals along the way.

    Her feet are poised over peril,
        Her eyes are familiar with death,
    Her radiant wings are daring things,
        Frail as the beat of a breath.

    Over the ocean of being,
        In her gay, incredible flight,
    See her float and run in the gold of the sun
        Down to the gates of night.

    The storm may darken above her,
        The surges thunder below,
    But on through a rift where the gold lights drift,
        Still she will dancing go.

    Treasuring things forgotten,
        As dreams and destinies fade;
    Spirit of truth and ageless youth
        She laughs and is not afraid.