WALKING ESSAYS
WALKING ESSAYS
BY
A. H. SIDGWICK
LONDON
EDWARD ARNOLD
1912
All rights reserved
{v}{iv}
DEDICATION
COMITIBUS
O you who walked the ways with me
On hill and plain and hollow:
I ask your pardon, frank and free,
For all the things that follow.
Let me at least make one thing clear;
In these—I know no name for them—
These dreary talks on futile themes,
Dim visions from a dullards dreams,
At least you take no blame for them.
On hill and plain and hollow:
I ask your pardon, frank and free,
For all the things that follow.
Let me at least make one thing clear;
In these—I know no name for them—
These dreary talks on futile themes,
Dim visions from a dullards dreams,
At least you take no blame for them.
You cheered my heart, made short the road,
And kept me philanthropic;
I only write this little ode
Which desecrates the topic.
You trode with me the mountain ridge
And clove the cloud wreaths over it;
I take the web of memories
We wove beneath the summer skies
And lo! the ink-spots cover it.{vi}
And kept me philanthropic;
I only write this little ode
Which desecrates the topic.
You trode with me the mountain ridge
And clove the cloud wreaths over it;
I take the web of memories
We wove beneath the summer skies
And lo! the ink-spots cover it.{vi}
How vain my effort, how absurd,
Considered as a symbol!
How lame and dull the written word
To you the swift and nimble!
How alien to the walkers mind,
Earth-deep, heaven-high, unfillable,
These petty snarls and jests ill-laid
And all the profitless parade
Of pompous polysyllable!
Considered as a symbol!
How lame and dull the written word
To you the swift and nimble!
How alien to the walkers mind,
Earth-deep, heaven-high, unfillable,
These petty snarls and jests ill-laid
And all the profitless parade
Of pompous polysyllable!
But yet, I feel, though weak my phrase,
My rhetoric though rotten,
At least our tale of Walks and Days
Should not go unforgotten;
At least some printed word should mark
The walker and his wanderings,
The strides which lay the miles behind
And lap the contemplative mind
In calm, unfathomed ponderings.
My rhetoric though rotten,
At least our tale of Walks and Days
Should not go unforgotten;
At least some printed word should mark
The walker and his wanderings,
The strides which lay the miles behind
And lap the contemplative mind
In calm, unfathomed ponderings.
And one rebuke I need not fear
From those of our profession,
That Walking Essays should appear
To be one long digression.
Let others take the hard high-road
And earn its gift, callosity:
For us the path that twists at will
Through wood and field, and up the hill
In easy tortuosity.{vii}
From those of our profession,
That Walking Essays should appear
To be one long digression.
Let others take the hard high-road
And earn its gift, callosity:
For us the path that twists at will
Through wood and field, and up the hill
In easy tortuosity.{vii}
...