The latest book that I've downloaded to my device for bedtime reading on the trail is free - because it's long out of copyright.
Sears, George Washington 1821-1890
Forest Runes
New York: Forest and Stream Publishing, 1887 xv, [17-]210pp
I. Nessmuk (pseud.)
1. Poems
This is a book of poetry by the author of Woodcraft, a book on what we would now call ultralight camping, published in 1884 and remaining in print ever since.
While to some it may have a mawkish, Victorian sentimentality, it has some passages that are as true today as then:
Do you call this trifling? I tell you, friend,
A life in the forest is past all praise.
Give me a dozen such months on end—
You may take my balance of years and days.
For brick and mortar breed filth and crime,
And a pulse of evil that throbs and beats.
And men are withered before their prime
By the curse paved in with the lanes and streets.
And lungs are poisoned, and shoulders bowed,
In the smothering reek of mill and mine;
And death stalks in on the struggling crowd—
But he shuns the shadow of oak and pine.
I think I'll thoroughly enjoy the odd verse or two from this little book while winding down in my tent at the end of a day Out There.
Sears, George Washington 1821-1890
Forest Runes
New York: Forest and Stream Publishing, 1887 xv, [17-]210pp
I. Nessmuk (pseud.)
1. Poems
This is a book of poetry by the author of Woodcraft, a book on what we would now call ultralight camping, published in 1884 and remaining in print ever since.
While to some it may have a mawkish, Victorian sentimentality, it has some passages that are as true today as then:
Do you call this trifling? I tell you, friend,
A life in the forest is past all praise.
Give me a dozen such months on end—
You may take my balance of years and days.
For brick and mortar breed filth and crime,
And a pulse of evil that throbs and beats.
And men are withered before their prime
By the curse paved in with the lanes and streets.
And lungs are poisoned, and shoulders bowed,
In the smothering reek of mill and mine;
And death stalks in on the struggling crowd—
But he shuns the shadow of oak and pine.
I think I'll thoroughly enjoy the odd verse or two from this little book while winding down in my tent at the end of a day Out There.
I'm not lost. I know where I am. I'm right here.