Poem by Helen Hunt Jackson

Outward Bound

The hour has come. Strong hands the anchor raise;
Friends stand and weep along the fading shore,
In sudden fear lest we return no more,
In sudden fancy that he safer stays
Who stays behind; that some new danger lays
New snare in each fresh path untrod before.
Ah, foolish hearts! In fate's mysterious lore
Is written no such choice of plan and days:
Each hour has its own peril and escape;
In most familiar things' familiar shape
New danger comes without or sight or sound;
No sea more foreign rolls than breaks each morn
Across our thresholds when the day is born:
We sail, at sunrise, daily, "outward bound."

1. The Way to Sing
2. Doubt
3. Poppies on the Wheat
4. Best
5. The End of Harvest

Thomas Aldrich Outward Bound ("I leave behind me the elm-shadowed square")

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