I Walk The Unfrequented Road

American folk hymn, 1835

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.