Thought for Thursday

The House by the 

Side of the Road

Sam Walter Foss

There are hermit souls that live withdrawn 
  In the place of their self-content;
There are souls like stars.,that dwell apart,
  In a fellowless firmament;
There are pioneer souls that blaze their paths
  Where highways never ran---
But let me live by the side of the road
  and be a friend to man.

Let me live in a house by the side of the road,
  Where the race of men go by---
The men who are good and the men who are bad,
  As good and as bad as I.
I would not sit in the scorner's seat,
  Or hurl the cynic's ban---
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
  And be a friend to man.

I see from my house by the side of the road,
  By the side of the highway of life,
The men who press with the ardor of hope,
 The men who are faint with the strife.
But I turn not away from their smiles nor their tears,
  Both parts of an infinite plan---

Let me live in a house by the side of the road

  And be a friend to man.

Mixed Media Art by Lynne Grant-Tull

I know there are brook-gladdened meadows ahead
  And mountains of wearisome height;
That the road passes on through the long afternoon
  And stretches away to the night.
But still I rejoice when the travelers rejoice,
  And weep with the strangers that moan,
Nor live in my house by the side of the road
  Like a man who dwells alone.

Born June 19, 1858
Died February 26, 1911

From One Hundred and One Famous Poems
 with a Prose Supplement
An Anthology Compiled by Roy J. Cook
Revised Edition, published in 1958
by The Reilly & Lee Co. Publishers, Chicago