Are you familiar with the Ideals publications? I have a box full (buried deep in the on-site storage building). Sometime during the last three years, I picked up another issue (from a thrift shop). This one is all “patriotic.” During the shuffle of boxes, yesterday, I found it tucked safely (waiting to join the others). First poem I read: The Common Road by Silas H. Perkins.

I want to travel the common road

With the great crowd surging by,

Where there’s many a laugh and many a load,

And many a smile and sign.

I want to be on the common way

With its endless tramping feet,

In the summer bright and winter gray,

In the noonday sun and heat.

In the cool of evening with shadows nigh,

At dawn, when the sun breaks clear,

I want the great crowd passing by

To ken what they see and hear.

I want to be one of the common herd,

Not live in a sheltered way,

Want to be thrilled, want to be stirred

By the great crowd day by day.

To glimpse the restful valleys deep,

To toil up the rugged hill,

To see the brooks which shyly creep,

To have the torrents thrill.

I want to laugh with the common man

Wherever he may chance to be,

I want to aid him when I can

Whenever there’s need of me.

I want to lend a helping hand

Over the rough and steep

To a child too young to understand,

To comfort those who weep.

I want to live and work and plan

With the great crowd surging by,

To mingle with the common man,

No better or worse than I.

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I won’t bore you with an analysis of my train-of-thought. Just accept the fact that this old lady loves poetry as much as she loves her garden and the birds. Stanchly patriotic, too!!