Afoot
|
|
Comes
the lure of green things growing,
Comes the call of waters flowing,—
And the wayfarer desire
Moves and wakes and would be going.
Hark the migrant hosts of June
|
5 |
Marching
nearer noon by noon!
Hark the gossip of the grasses
Bivouacked beneath the moon!
Hark the leaves their mirth averring;
Hark the buds to blossom stirring;
|
10 |
Hark
the hushed, exultant haste
Of the wind and world conferring!
Hark the sharp, insistent cry
Where the hawk patrols the sky!
Hark the flapping, as
of banners,
|
15 |
| Where
the heron triumphs by!
Empire in the coasts of bloom
Humming cohorts now resume,—
And desire is forth to
follow
Many a vagabond perfume.
|
20 |
Long
the quest and far the ending
Where my wayfarer is wending,—
When desire is once afoot,
Doom behind and dream attending!
Shuttle-cock of indecision,
|
25 |
Sport
of chance’s blind derision,
Yet he may not fail nor
tire
Till his eyes shall win the Vision.
In his ears the phantom chime
Of incommunicable rhyme,
|
30 |
He
shall chase the fleeting camp-fires
Of the Bedouins of Time.
Farer by uncharted ways,
Dumb as Death to plaint or praise,
Unreturning he shall journey,
|
35 |
| Fellow
to the nights and days:—
Till upon the outer bar
Stilled the moaning currents are,—
Till the flame achieves
the zenith,—
Till the moth attains the star,—
|
40 |
Till,
through laughter and through tears,
Fair the final peace appears,
And about the watered pastures
Sink to sleep the nomad years! |
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|
