A Song of the Open Road, and Other Verses

by Louis J. McQuilland

So dense the gloom, so dark the night,
So thick the driving rain,
No star compassionate can view
The city in its pain;
Yet, lulled within the firelight’s glow,
My vision comes again.

* * *

White sails across the harbour-bar
Speed, speed me fast to sea.
Know ye not in the Blessèd Isle
My comrades wait for me?
And I would greet in old, old tryst
The golden company.

O’er the great waters crystalline
So speedily we sail,
The red gold of the living sun,
The dead moon’s silvery pale,
Flash on mine eyes from hour to hour
Till lo! the Isle I hail.

I stand upon its shining sands,
My comrades round me press.
After the years of sordid care,
The cark of fate’s duress,
I come into my own again
In life’s young eagerness.

Once more I meet the men I loved
In the dear days long syne,
The tried and chosen brotherhood
Who once were kith of mine.
The oath of the old fraternity
Is still a pledge divine.

We talk again of ardent days,
The glow of sparkling nights,
Tourney of wits in revelry
And jousts of smiling fights,
Grasping with grave-eyed happiness
The zest of past delights.

Night blooms with many a myriad stars
Over the Blessèd Isle;
The haunting scent of its orange-groves
Exhales for mile on mile;
The sapphired pearl of its sleeping bay
Is rippled with a smile.

The feast is laid in the banquet-hall,
The guests are summoned there,
Joyous but low the minstrelsy
Thrills in the rose-tinged air;
The wine is red as the Flame of Life,
In the days when the world was fair.

With laughter and song we find again
The heart of the Secret Rose:
We rise to the toast of the Brotherhood:
The Gates of Pearl unclose.