Not for me the bright, clean hearth nor a woman's clinging hands! Give me the smell of pungent earth and the sweep of desert sands! For within me lies a ceaseless yearn to wander, wander ever Out where gypsy campfires burn; constant I am never! Every morn when the blazing sun rises over the hill, Rise I, too, and wander on, feeling my pulses thrill To the wild delight of a vagrant breeze and a newer, stranger road, Singing a drifter's melodies, carrying never a load Of trouble or care. I'm fancy-free and wild as the western wave; I take whatever comes to me, and it's little that I crave. Alone I search for a Promised Land where chance and change may dwell, But sometimes I think of a tender hand that clasped mine in farewell; And then I curse my wayward heart -- but what is the good of that? For I'm a vagabond -- set apart -- and my home's where I hang my hat! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE HERETIC: 1. BLASPHEMY by LOUIS UNTERMEYER CLOTHES DO BUT CHEAT AND COZEN US by ROBERT HERRICK THE MEN BEHIND THE GUNS by JOHN JEROME ROONEY BROKEN MUSIC by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH FRAGMENT OF AN 'ANTIGONE' by MATTHEW ARNOLD PARAPHRASE OF ADON OLAM by DAVID NUNES CARVALHO EVENING SONG by MATTHIAS CLAUDIUS LINES, WRITTEN AT MIDNIGHT, IN THE PROSPECT OF A BEREAVEMENT by ELIZA COOK |