On This Day 16th March

Songs of the Road

Songs of the Road is a volume collecting 33 poems written by Arthur Conan Doylefirst published by Smith, Elder & Co. on 16 march 1911.

The volume is divided in three parts: 

• Narratives verses and songs
• Philosophic verses
• Miscellaneous verses

The book is dedicated: "To J. C. D. This-and All. February 1911."

Editions

• Songs of the Road (16 march 1911, Smith, Elder & Co. [UK])
• Songs of the Road (october 1911, Doubleday, Page & Co. [US])
• Songs of the Road (27 january 1920, John Murray [UK])
• Songs of the Road (february 1920, John Murray [UK])
• in The Poems of Arthur Conan Doyle (21 september 1922, John Murray [UK])
• in The Poems of Arthur Conan Doyle (14 september 1928, John Murray's Fiction Library [UK])

• Foreword

I. - Narrative Verses and Songs

• A Hymn of Empire
• Sir Nigel's Song
• The Arab Steed
• A Post-Impressionist
• Empire Builders
• The Groom's Encore
• The Bay Horse
• The Outcasts
• The End
• 1902-1909
• The Wanderer
• Bendy's Sermon

II. - Philosophic Verses

• Compensation
• The Banner of Progress
• Hope
• Religio Medici
• Man's Limitation
• Mind and Matter
• Darkness

III. - Miscellaneous Verses

• A Woman's Love
• By the North Sea
• December's Snow
• Shakespeare's Expostulation
• The Empire
• A Voyage
• The Orphanage
• Sexagenarius Loquitur
• Night Voices
• The Message
• The Echo
• Advice to a Young Author
• A Lilt of the Road

Foreword

If it were not for the hillocks
You'd think little of the hills;
The rivers would seem tiny
If it were not for the rills.
If you never saw the brushwood
You would under-rate the trees;
And so you see the purpose
Of such little rhymes as these.

Crowborough
1911