The House by the Side of the Road

THERE are hermit souls that live withdrawn

In the place of their self-content;

There are souls like stars, that dwell apart,

In a fellowless firmament;

There are pioneer souls that blaze the paths

Where highways never ran-

But let me live by the side of the road

And be a friend to man.

Let me live in a house by the side of the road

Where the race of men go by-

The men who are good and the men who are bad,

As good and as bad as I.

I would not sit in the scorner's seat

Nor hurl the cynic's ban-

Let me live in a house by the side of the road

And be a friend to man.

I see from my house by the side of the road

By the side of the highway of life,

The men who press with the ardor of hope,

The men who are faint with the strife,

But I turn not away from their smiles and tears,

Both parts of an infinite plan-

Let me live in a house by the side of the road

And be a friend to man.

I know there are brook-gladdened meadows ahead,

And mountains of wearisome height;

That the road passes on through the long afternoon

And stretches away to the night.

And still I rejoice when the travelers rejoice

And weep with the strangers that moan,

Nor live in my house by the side of the road

Like a man who dwells alone.

Let me live in my house by the side of the road,

Where the race of men go by-

They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong,

Wise, foolish - so am I.

Then why should I sit in the scorner's seat,

Or hurl the cynic's ban?

Let me live in my house by the side of the road

And be a friend to man.

Sam Walter Foss

Toil's Sweet Content

THE Man of Questions paused and stood

Before the Man of Toil,

And asked, "Are you content, my man,

To dig here in the soil?

Do you not yearn for wealth and fame,

And this wide world to see?"

The Man of Toil still stirred the soil

And answered, "No, sir-ee!"

"Do you not yearn," the Questioner asked,

"To pluck life's higher fruits?"

"Oh, yes," said he, "I'd like, maybe,

Another pair of boots."

"And wouldn't you like a coat to match,

And pantaloons and a hat;

And wouldn't you like to dress as well

As your neighbor Jacob Pratt?"

"Why, I'd have duds as good as Jake,"

The Man of Toil replied;

"Why, I'd have clo'es as good as those

'Fore I'd be satisfied."

"But if Jake ran for selectman

And nothing could defeat him,

How would it do, then, just for you

To step right in and beat him?"

"First-class idee," the Man of Toil

Responded with delight;

"I think I'd make mince-meat of Jake

'Fore we got through the fight."

"And then you'd settle down content?"

"Content? Of Course! I swan!

A man's a hog who asks for more

When he's a sillickman."

"But, sir, our Congress is corrupt

And needs a renovation;

Wouldn't you consent in such event

To take the nomination?"

"Oh yes I'd take the job," said he.

The Questioner arched his eyes,

"Then don't you think the presidency

Would be about your size?

Now after Congress had been cleansed

Beyond a shade of doubt

I think you'd go--you would, I know--

And clean the White House out."

"I'd take the job and do it brown,"

The Man of Toil replied;

"But you hoe corn from morn till night

And still are satisfied."

"Me satisfied! I guess that you

Don't know me," he began--

"Oh, yes, I do, I well know you

You are the Average Man."

Sam Walter Foss

The Poster-Painter's Masterpiece

"LET us paint a landscape in June," he cried;

"A Landscape in high June."

And the poster-painter swelled with pride

And trilled a merry tune.

And he painted five cows in Antwerp blue

(For he was a poster-painter true),

And the grass they browsed was a light écru

And a dark maroon.

And the foot of one cow was in the sky,

And her horns were pink and green;

Her amber tail it curled on high--

A bright and beauteous scene.

And a lavender river flowed at her feet

With gamboge lilies fragrant and sweet,

But some were the color of powdered peat,

Some light marine.

And another cow's tail was round the sun

(Her horns hung limply down);

And her tail was white as wool new-spun,

And the sun was a neutral brown.

In the drab background was a pale-blue lamb

Who stood by the side of her turquoise dam,

And the sky--a pink parallelogram--

On the lamb closed down.

And the rhomboid hills were of ochre hue

With trees of lilac white,

And rectilinear forests grew

In a limpid cochineal light.

An isosceles lake spread fair and pink,

And, gathered about its damask brink,

Triangular swans came down to drink

With glad delight.

Then a milkmaid came with cheeks of dun

And a smile of dark maroon,

One arm was on the setting sun,

One on the rising moon.

And she seemed to float from a Nile-green sky,

With an ebony arm and an ivory eye,

And her gown swelled from a point on high,

Like a pink balloon.

But all the things the painter drew

'Twere hard to tell--

The cow, the sky, the swans of blue,

Lamb, maid, he painted well.

But which was the cow and which the maid,

And which were the swans or the trees of shade,

And which were the sky or the hills, I'm afraid,

No soul could tell.

Sam Walter Foss

Business

"HOW is business?" asks the young man of the Spirit of the Years;

"Tell me of the modern output from the factories of fate,

And what jobs are waiting for me, waiting for me and my peers.

What's the outlook? What's the prospect? Are the wages small or great?"

"Business growing, more men needed," says the Spirit of the Years,

"Jobs are waiting for right workmen,--and I hope you are the men,--

Grand hard work and ample wages, work piled up in great arrears--

'Don't see any job particular?' Listen, and I'll tell you then.

"There are commonwealths to govern, there are senates to be swayed,

There are new states still undreamed of to be founded,

New empires in far oceans to be moulded--who's afraid?--

And a couple polar oceans to be sounded.

Come on, ye jolly empire-builders, here is work for you to do,

And we don't propose to get along without it.

Here's the little job of building this old planet over new,

And it's time to do the business. Get about it.

"Get to work, ye world-repairers. Steel the age and guide the years,

Shame the antique men with bigness of your own;

Grow ye larger men than Plutarch's and the old long-whiskered seers;

Show the world a million kings without a throne.

'What's your business?' Empire-building, founding hierarchies for the soul,

Principalities and powers for the mind,

Bringing ever-narrowing chaos under cosmical control,

Building highways through its marsh-lands for mankind.

"Sow the lonely plains with cities; thread the flowerless land with streams;

Go to thinking thoughts unthought-of, following where your genius leads,

Seeing visions, hearing voices, following stars, and dreaming dreams,

And then bid your dreams and visions bloom and flower into deeds.

'What's your business?' Shaping eras, making epochs, building States,

Wakening slumbering rebellions in the soul,

Leading men and founding systems, grappling with the elder fates

Till the younger fates shall greaten and assume the old control.

"'Business rushing?' Fairly lively. There's a world to clean and sweep,

Cluttered up with wars and armies; 'tis your work to brush 'em out;

Bid the fierce clinch-fisted nations clasp their hands across the deep;

Wipe the tired world of armies; 'tis a fair day's work no doubt.

'Business rushing?' Something doing. You've a contract on your hands

To wipe out the world's distinctions,--country, color, caste, and birth,--

And to make one human family of a thousand alien lands,

Nourishing a billion brothers with no foreigner on earth.

"Have you learned yet," says the Zeitgeist, "the old secret of the soul?

Make the sleepy sphinx give answer, for her riddle's long unguessed.

Tell the riddle; clear the mystery; bid the midnight dark uproll;

Let the thought with which the ages long have travailed be expressd.

Go and find the Northwest Passage through the far seas of the mind,--

There, where man and God are mingled in the darkness, go and learn.

Sail forth on that bournless ocean, shrouded, chartless, undefined:

Pluck its mystery from that darkness; pluck its mystery and return.

"'What's your business?' Finding out things that no other man could find,--

Things concealed by jealous Nature under locks, behind the bars;

Building paved and guttered highways for the onward march of mind

Through the spaces 'twixt the planets to the secrets of the stars.

'What's your business?' Think like Plato,--he did not exhaust all thought;

Preach like Savonarola; rule like Alfred; do not shirk;

Paint like Raphael and Titian; build like Angelo--why not?

Sing like Shakespeare. 'How is business?' Rather lively. Get to work!"

Sam Walter Foss

The Coming War

"THERE will be a war in Europe,

Thrones will be rent and overturned,"

("Go and fetch a pail of water," said his wife).

"Nations shall go down in slaughter,

Ancient capitals be burned,"

("Hurry up and split the kindlings," said his wife).

"Cities wrapped in conflagration!

Nation decimating nation!

Chaos crashing through creation!"

("Go along and feed the chickens," said his wife).

"And the war shall reach to Asia,

And the Orient be rent,"

("When you going to pay the grocer?" says his wife).

"And the myrmidons of thunder

Shake the trembling continent,"

("Hurry up and beat them carpets," said his wife).

"Million myriads invading,

Rapine, rioting, and raiding,

Conquest, carnage, cannonading!"

("Wish you'd come and stir this puddin'," said his wife).

"Oh, it breaks my heart, this onflict

Of the Sclav and Celt and Dane,"

("Bob has stubbed his rubber boots on," said his wife).

"Oh, the draggled Russian banners!

Oh, the chivalry of Spain!"

("We have got no more molasses," said his wife).

"See the marshalled millions led on

With no bloodless sod to tread on,

Gog and Magog! Armageddon!"

("Hurry up and get a yeast cake," said his wife).

"Oh, the grapple of the nations,

It is coming, woe is me!"

("Did you know we're out of flour?" said his wife).

"Oh, the many-centuried empires

Overwhelmed in slaughter's sea!"

("Wish you'd go and put the cat out," said his wife).

"Death and dreadful dissolution

Wreak their awful execution,

Carnage, anarchy, confusion!"

("Let me have two cents for needles," said his wife.

"All my love goes out to Europe,

And my heart is torn and sad,"

("How can I keep house on nothing?" said his wife).

"O, the carnival of carnage,

O, the battle, malestrom mad!"

("Wish you'd battle for a living," said his wife).

"Down in smoke and blood and thunder,

While the stars look on in wonder,

Must these empires all go under?"

("Where're we going to get our dinner?" said his wife).

Sam Walter Foss

The Ideal Husband to His Wife

WE'VE lived for forty years, dear wife,

  And walked together side by side,

And you to-day are just as dear

  As when you were my bride.

I've tried to make life glad for you,

  One long, sweet honeymoon of joy,

A dream of marital content,

  Without the least alloy.

I've smoothed all boulders from our path,

  That we in peace might toil along,

By always hastening to admit

  That I was right and you were wrong.

No mad diversity of creed

  Has ever sundered me from thee;

For I permit you evermore

  To borrow your ideas of me.

And thus it is, through weal or woe,

  Our love forevermore endures;

For I permit that you should take

  My views and creeds, and make them yours.

And thus I let you have my way,

  And thus in peace we toil along,

For I am willing to admit

  That I am right and you are wrong.

And when our matrimonial skiff

  Strikes snags in love's meandering stream,

I lift our shallop from the rocks,

  And float as in a placid dream.

And well I know our marriage bliss

  While life shall last will never cease;

For I shall always let thee do,

  In generous love, just what I please.

Peace comes, and discord flies away,

  Love's bright day follows hatred's night;

For I am ready to admit

  That you are wrong and I am right.

Sam Walter Foss