The Spike or Victoria University College Review September 1927
The Reason for it
The Reason for it.
To those would-be trampers who wish to come tramping, but have not yet summoned up sufficient courage to join the Club and come out with us; to those sceptics who are inclined to doubt our sanity; to all those who love the freedom that only Nature can give, we recommend these lines of Hamlin Garland:
What have I gained by the toil of the trail?
I know and know well.
I have found once again the love I had lost
In the loud city's hell.
I have broadened my hand to the cinch and the axe,
I have laid my flesh to the rain;
I was hunter and trailer and guide;
I have touched the most primitive wildness again.
I have threaded the wild with the stealth of the deer,
No eagle is freer than I;
No mountain can thwart me, no torrent appal,
I defy the stern sky.
So long as I live, these joys will remain,
I have touched the most primitive wildness again.