Love-songs of the Open Road
Morning
The morning wind is wooing me; her lips have swept my brow.
Was ever dawn so sweet before? the land so fair as now?
The wanderlust is luring to wherever roads may lead,
While yet the dew is on the hedge. So how can I but heed?
The forest whispers of its shades; of haunts where we have been,—
And where may friends be better made than under God’s green inn?
Your mouth is warm and laughing and your voice is calling low,
While yet the dew is on the hedge. So how can I but go?
Noon
The bees are humming, humming in the clover;
The bobolink is singing in the rye;
The brook is purling, purling in the valley,
And the river’s laughing, radiant, to the sky!
The buttercups are nodding in the sunlight;
The winds are whispering, whispering to the pine;
The joy of June has found me; as an aureole it’s crowned me
Because, oh best belovèd, you are mine!
Night
In Arcady by moonlight
(Where only lovers go),
There is a pool where only
The fairest roses grow.
Why are the moonlit roses
So sweet beyond compare?
Among their purple shadows
My love is waiting there.
* * * * *
To Arcady by moonlight
The roads are open wide,
But only joy can enter
And only joy abide.
There is the peace unending
That perfect faith can know —
In Arcady by moonlight,
Where only lovers go.
~~
Kendall Banning (1879-1944)
from Poetry, January 1913
[Poems are in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]
Kendall Banning biography
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