MY grandsire was a vagabond Who made the Road his bride. He left his son a wanderer's heart And little enough beside; And all his life my father heard The fluting of a hidden bird That lured him on from hedge to hedge To walk the world so wide. AND now he walks the worlds beyond And drifts on hidden seas Undesecrated by a chart -- Blithe derelict at ease. And sometimes when I halt at night, In answer to my campfire's light His own uplifts a glowing wedge Among the Pleiades. WOMEN are fair but all too fond; Home holds a man too fast. I'll choose for mine a freeman's part And sing as I go past. No lighted windows beckon me, The open sky my canopy. I'll camp upon Creation's edge, A wanderer to the last. |