To The Road

Paul Laurence Dunbar 1872 (Dayton) – 1906



Cool is the wind, for the summer is waning,
Who 's for the road?
Sun-flecked and soft, where the dead leaves are raining,
Who 's for the road?
Knapsack and alpenstock press hand and shoulder,
Prick of the brier and roll of the boulder;
This be your lot till the season grow older;
Who 's for the road?

Up and away in the hush of the morning,
Who 's for the road?
Vagabond he, all conventions a-scorning,
Who 's for the road?
Music of warblers so merrily singing,
Draughts from the rill from the roadside up-springing,
Nectar of grapes from the vines lowly swinging,
These on the road.

Now every house is a hut or a hovel,
Come to the road:
Mankind and moles in the dark love to grovel,
But to the road.
Throw off the loads that are bending you double;
Love is for life, only labor is trouble;
Truce to the town, whose best gift is a bubble:
Come to the road!

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

50 sec read
73

Quick analysis:

Scheme aBaBcccB aBaBaaab dBdbdddB
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 843
Words 167
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Paul Laurence Dunbar was a seminal American poet of the late 19th and early 20th centuries Dunbar gained national recognition for his 1896 Lyrics of a Lowly Life one poem in the collection being Ode to Ethiopia more…

All Paul Laurence Dunbar poems | Paul Laurence Dunbar Books

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