Property:Has text
From Off the Road Database
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<div class="poem">
<p>The Doctor made a subdued dash for it,<br />
And propped himself at bay against a pillow.
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<div class="poem">
<p>“Show him this way. I’m not afraid of him,<br />
I’m not so drunk I can’t take care of myself.”<br />
The night clerk clapped a bedstead on the foot.<br />
“This will be yours. Good-night,” he said, and went.
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<div class="poem">
<p>“Magoon.<br />
Doctor Magoon.”
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<p>“It’s business, but I can’t say it’s not fun.<br />
What I like best’s the lay of different farms,<br />
Coming out on them from a stretch of woods,<br />
Or over a hill or round a sudden corner.<br />
I like to find folks getting out in spring,<br />
Raking the dooryard, working near the house.<br />
Later they get out further in the fields.<br />
Everything’s shut sometimes except the barn;<br />
The family’s all away in some back meadow.<br />
There’s a hay load a-coming—when it comes.<br />
And later still they all get driven in:<br />
The fields are stripped to lawn, the garden patches<br />
Stripped to bare ground, the apple trees<br />
To whips and poles. There’s nobody about.<br />
The chimney, though, keeps up a good brisk smoking.<br />
And I lie back and ride. I take the reins<br />
Only when someone’s coming, and the mare<br />
Stops when she likes: I tell her when to go.<br />
I’ve spoiled Jemima in more ways than one.<br />
She’s got so she turns in at every house<br />
As if she had some sort of curvature,<br />
No matter if I have no errand there.<br />
She thinks I’m sociable. I maybe am.<br />
It’s seldom I get down except for meals, though.<br />
Folks entertain me from the kitchen doorstep,<br />
All in a family row down to the youngest.”
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<p>The Doctor looked at Lafe and looked away.<br />
A man? A brute. Naked above the waist,<br />
He sat there creased and shining in the light,<br />
Fumbling the buttons in a well-starched shirt.<br />
“I’m moving into a size-larger shirt.<br />
I’ve felt mean lately; mean’s no name for it.<br />
I just found what the matter was to-night:<br />
I’ve been a-choking like a nursery tree<br />
When it outgrows the wire band of its name tag.<br />
I blamed it on the hot spell we’ve been having.<br />
’Twas nothing but my foolish hanging back,<br />
Not liking to own up I’d grown a size.<br />
Number eighteen this is. What size do you wear?”
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<div class="poem">
<p>“You drive around? It must be pleasant work.”
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<div class="poem">
<p>He shut the door.<br />
The Doctor slid a little down the pillow.
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<div class="poem">
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<div class="poem">
<p>“Yes, Layfayette.<br />
You got it the first time. And yours?”
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<p>“I don’t know who I rather would have have them.<br />
They’re only turning yellow where they are.<br />
But you’re the doctor as the saying is.<br />
I’ll put the light out. Don’t you wait for me:<br />
I’ve just begun the night. You get some sleep.<br />
I’ll knock so-fashion and peep round the door<br />
When I come back so you’ll know who it is.<br />
There’s nothing I’m afraid of like scared people.<br />
I don’t want you should shoot me in the head.<br />
What am I doing carrying off this bottle?<br />
There now, you get some sleep.”
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<div class="poem">
<p>“Who is it?”
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<div class="poem">
<p>“Just as you say. Have it your own way then.<br />
‘My man’ is it? You talk like a professor.<br />
Speaking of who’s afraid of who, however,<br />
I’m thinking I have more to lose than you<br />
If anything should happen to be wrong.<br />
Who wants to cut your number fourteen throat!<br />
Let’s have a show down as an evidence<br />
Of good faith. There is ninety dollars.<br />
Come, if you’re not afraid.”
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<div class="poem">
<p>Let those who will stride on their barren roads<br />
And prick themselves to haste with self-made goads,<br />
Unheeding, as they struggle day by day,<br />
If flowers be sweet or skies be blue or gray:<br />
For me, the lone, cool way by purling brooks,<br />
The solemn quiet of the woodland nooks,<br />
A song-bird somewhere trilling sadly gay,<br />
A pause to pick a flower beside the way.
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<div class="poem">
<p>Hush, hush, these woods are thick with shapes and voices,<br />
They crowd behind, in front, <br />
Scarcely can one’s wheels break through them. <br />
For God’s sake, drive quickly! <br />
There are butchered victims behind those trees, <br />
And what you say is moss I know is the dead hair of hanged men. <br />
Drive faster, faster.<br />
The hair will catch in our wheels and clog them;<br />
We are thrown from side to side by the dead bodies in the road,<br />
Do you not smell the reek of them, <br />
And see the jaundiced film that hides the stars?<br />
Stand on the accelerator. I would rather be bumped to a jelly<br />
Than caught by clutching hands I cannot see, <br />
Than be stifled by the press of mouths I cannot feel. <br />
Not in the light glare, you fool, but on either side of it. <br />
Curse these swift, running trees, <br />
Hurl them aside, leap them, crush them down, <br />
Say prayers if you like, <br />
Do anything to drown the screaming silence of this forest, <br />
To hide the spinning shapes that jam the trees. <br />
What mystic adventure is this <br />
In which you have engulfed me? <br />
What no-world have you shot us into? <br />
What Dante dream without a farther edge? <br />
Fright kills, they say, and I believe it. <br />
If you would not have murder on your conscience,<br />
For Heaven’s sake, get on!
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<div class="poem">
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<div class="poem">
<p>I breathe the imperishable breath,<br />
I trespass the bounds of death––<br />
For my heart knows all the way<br />
To the eternal day.
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<div class="poem">
<p>Bend low, impenetrable sky––<br />
Through your shades my road runs high:<br />
It needs no stars to guide––<br />
No measuring sea-tide.
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<div class="poem">
<p>A white road between sea and land,<br />
Night and silence on either hand––<br />
Pointing to some unknown gate<br />
A white forefinger of fate.
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<div class="poem">
<p>I follow, I follow––I'll wend<br />
My way on this road to the end;<br />
Silence may keep to the sea,<br />
On land no light shines free.
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