1.

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,

Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,

Strong and content I travel the open road.


2.

The earth, that is sufficient,

I do not want the constellations any nearer,

I know they are very well where they are,

I know they suffice for those who belong to them.


(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,

I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go,

I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,

I am fill'd with them, and I will fill them in return.)


3.

You road I enter upon and look around, I believe you are not all that is here,

I believe that much unseen is also here.


Here the profound lesson of reception, nor preference nor denial,

Here black and white, here the red and the yellow, the ancient and the modern,

The opening tender and the roughness, the strange and the smooth,

The swarming reality, the richness and the sweetness.


Here the realization of the majesty of the soul.

Here the audience of the eternal, the divine, the vast, the round.

Here time and place fall away.


4.

The earth expanding right hand and left hand,

The picture alive, every part in its best light,

The music falling in where it is wanted, and stopping where it is not wanted,

The cheerful voice of the public road, the gay fresh sentiment of the road.


O highway I travel, do you say to me 'Do not leave me'?

Do you say 'Do not venture forth'?

If you say so, I answer 'I neither am afraid to go, nor to stay,'

I am for my own sake: I will not go until I am ready.


5.

(I raise the chorus of the open road,

I sing a song of the open road,

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.


6.

O highway I travel! O public road!

You express me better than I can express myself,

You shall be more to me than my poem.


I think heroic deeds were all conceived in the open air, and all free poems also,

I think I could stop here myself and do miracles,

I think whatever I shall meet on the road I shall like, and whoever beholds me shall like me,

I think whoever I see must be happy.


7.

From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines,

Going where I list, my own master total and absolute,

Listening to others, considering well what they say,

Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,

Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.


I inhale great draughts of space,

The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine.


I am larger, better than I thought,

I did not know I held so much goodness.


All seems beautiful to me.


8.

I can repeat over to men and women 'You have done such good to me, I would do the same to you,'

I will recruit for myself and you as I go,

I will scatter myself among men and women as I go,

I will toss a new gladness and roughness among them,

Whoever denies me it shall not trouble me,

Whoever accepts me he or she shall be blessed and shall bless me.


9.

Now if a thousand perfect men were to appear it would not amaze me,

Now if a thousand beautiful forms of women appear'd it would not astonish me.


Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons,

It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.


Here a great personal deed has room,

(Such a deed seizes upon the bodies of men and women and enters their own soul,)

Its grace, its daring, its beauty, its ruggedness fail not to be seen.

It rules and directs us, it is for the great and the small.


10.

O the gleesome saunter over fields and hillsides!

The leaves and the leaves of the grass, the only curtains of the scene,

The picking out of a tree, the shade for my companions,

The chorus of the forest-trees flaunting their tops in the breeze,

The sweeping of the wind over the cornfields, the gentle undulation of the ears.


11.

O the morning it calls for a walk! O the union, the mysterious joy!

O the journey to the end of the day! O the endless journey!


I tramp a perpetual journey,

(Come listen all! the signs of the times are here,)

The signals and signs I give are not for your house and land alone.


I give you my love, more precious than money,

I give you myself before preaching or law;

Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me?

Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?


12.

I think I am the wind and the storm and the rain,

I am the gathering of the clouds, the bursting forth of the lightning.

I am the sea, I am the vastness of the earth.

I am the shadow cast by the mountains, the whisper of the trees.


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.


13.

I inhale great draughts of space,

The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine.


I am larger, better than I thought,

I did not know I held so much goodness.


All seems beautiful to me.


I can repeat over to men and women 'You have done such good to me, I would do the same to you,'

I will recruit for myself and you as I go.

I will scatter myself among men and women as I go.


14.

I know I am deathless,

I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter's compass,

I know I shall not pass like a child's carlacue cut with a burnt stick at night.


I know I am august,

I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood,

I see that the elementary laws never apologize,

(I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by, after all.)


I exist as I am, that is enough,

If no other in the world be aware I sit content,

And if each and all be aware I sit content.


One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,

And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten million years,

I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.


15.

My foothold is tenon'd and mortis'd in granite,

I laugh at what you call dissolution,

And I know the amplitude of time.


I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul,

The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me,

The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into a new tongue.


I am the poet of the woman the same as the man,

And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man,

And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.


I chant the chant of dilation or pride,

We have had ducking and deprecating about enough,

I show that size is only development.


Have you outstript the rest? are you the President?

It is a trifle, they will more than arrive there every one, and still pass on.


I am he that walks with the tender and growing night,

I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.


Press close bare-bosom'd night—press close magnetic nourishing night!

Night of south winds—night of the large few stars!

Still nodding night—mad naked summer night.


Smile O voluptuous cool-breath'd earth!

Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!

Earth of departed sunset—earth of the mountains misty-topt!

Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!

Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!

Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake!

Far-swooping elbow'd earth—rich apple-blossom'd earth!

Smile, for your lover comes.


Prodigal, you have given me love—therefore I to you give love!

O unspeakable passionate love.


You road I enter upon and look around, I believe you are not all that is here,

I believe that much unseen is also here.


Here the profound lesson of reception, nor preference nor denial,

Here the swarming reality, the richness and the sweetness.


From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines,

Going where I list, my own master total and absolute.


I inhale great draughts of space,

The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine.


I am larger, better than I thought.


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.