Sam Walter Foss

Let me live in a house by the side of the road and be a friend to man.

Let me live in a house by the side of the road and be a friend to man.

"Oh, ship ahoy!" rang out the cry;
"Oh, give us water or we die!"
A voice came read more

"Oh, ship ahoy!" rang out the cry;
"Oh, give us water or we die!"
A voice came o'er the waters far,
"Just drop your bucket where you are."
And then they dipped and drank their fill
Of water fresh from mead and hill;
And then they knew they sailed upon
The broad mouth of the Amazon.

Seek not for fresher founts afar,
Just drop your bucket where you are;
And while the ship read more

Seek not for fresher founts afar,
Just drop your bucket where you are;
And while the ship right onward leaps,
Uplift it from the exhaustless deeps.
Parch not your life with dry despair;
The stream of hope flow everywhere--
So under every sky and star,
Just drop your bucket where you are.

A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead;
They followed still his read more

A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead;
They followed still his crooked way
And lost a hundred years a day;
For thus such reverence is lent
To well established precedent.