I Walk The Unfrequented Road

American Folk Hymn, 1835 (music)

Frederick L. Hosmer

I walk the unfreqented road
With open eye and ear;
I watch a-field the farmer load
The bounty of the year.

A beauty spring-time never knew
Haunts all the quiet ways,
And sweeter shines the landscape through
Its veil of autumn haze.

I face the hill, the streams, the wood,
And feel with all a-kin;
My heart expands;
Their fortitude
And peace and joy flow in.

I filch the fruit of no man's toil
No trespasser am i,
And yet i reap from ev`ry soil
And from the unmeasured sky.

I gather where i did not sow,
And bind the mystic sheaf,
The amber air, the river's flow,
The rustle of the leaf.