Travel Poems
Song Of The Open Road
by Walt Whitman
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;
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Strong and content, I travel the open road.
The earth--that is sufficient;
I do not want the constellations any nearer;
......
Travel
by Robert Louis Stevenson
I should like to rise and go
Where the golden apples grow;--
Where below another sky
Parrot islands anchored lie,
And, watched by cockatoos and goats,
Lonely Crusoes building boats;--
Where in sunshine reaching out
Eastern cities, miles about,
Are with mosque and minaret
Among sandy gardens set,
......
The Brook
by Alfred Lord Tennyson
I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.
By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorpes, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.
......
London, 1802
by William Wordsworth
Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour;
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart;
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
......
The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
......
An Arctic Story
by Dr. Robert Ippaso
At first light trudging through the Arctic Snow,
Is it for thrill or just a Facebook photo show?
As the Arctic wind buffets our flushed face,
The long-awaited walk soon becomes a shambles of a race.
Hands morph to splintered wood, eyebrows deftly freeze,
And yet the brochure promised we’d do this trek with ease.
Soldier on, embrace the frigid grind,
Pray aloud that inner fortitude to find,
Not a sound outside our laden breath,
Every move made with fractured hapless stealth.
......
Sweet Sorrow
by Evelyn Judy Buehler
Bonnie Brown was in love with Charles, like black pearl clings to night,
So young and engaged to be married, like myriad stars, shining white.
They were active professionals, dwelling in a charming, bustling town;
As warbling charms orange noon, after pink mist clears, with no sound.
They had dreams of future and a family, like purple nights of fantasy;
And they were already making plans, like butterflies flitting frantically.
Fellowship of friends made fabulous Fridays, when they met after hours,
......
Is something calling again
by Amy Michelle Mosier
Is something calling again
From the distant hills outbound?
Is it a small voice within
Or something hidden without?
What awaits you down the road
Once you cross the valley bridge?
Should you find it and take hold
Will it satiate a wish?
......
Rare and stark is the isolated island
by Amy Michelle Mosier
Rare and stark is the isolated island
In its heart - its bipolar mood
And it stokes within the imagination
A fire - a want of pursuit.
Its knobby fingers reach out to a black sea -
Bringing roamers to some land's end;
Its fjords entice sojourners in for relief
After a frigid trip endured.
......
Saint-Léger en Bray
by Joe Cyr
(Rondel)
Le Domaine du Colombier flaunts a charming castle villa
near Saint-Léger en Bray, a town whose charm
time has not yet erased.
Ancient walls flank historic houses
in colombage sides embraced;
narrow walking paths lace a trellised flowered cornucopia.
Enhancing the provincial community’s medieval aura
is a miniature cathedral, to sixteenth-century traced.
......
