Ye wanderers that were my sires , Who read men's fortunes in the hand, Who voyaged with your smithy fires From waste to waste across the land- Why did you leave for garth and town Your life by heath and river's brink? Why lay your gipsy freedom down And doom your child to Pen and Ink? You wearied of the wild-wood meal That crowned, or failed to crown, the day; Too honest or too tame to steal You broke into the beaten way: Plied loom or awl like other men, And learned to love the guineas' chink- Oh, recreant sires, who doomed me then To earn so few-with Pen and Ink! Where it hath fallen the tree must lie, 'Tis over late for me to roam; Yet the caged bird who hears the cry Of his wild fellows fleeting home, May feel no sharper pang than mine, Who seem to hear, whene'er I think, Spate in the stream and wind in pine, Call me to quit dull Pen and Ink. For then the spirit wandering, That slept within the blood, awakes; For then the summer and the spring I fain would meet by streams and lakes; But ah, my birthright long is sold, But custom chains me, link on link, And I must get me, as of old, Back to my tools-to Pen and Ink. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BONDAGE by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON A VALENTINE TO SHERWOOD ANDERSON by GERTRUDE STEIN THE DEBT by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR THE LAMENTATION OF GLUMDALCLITCH FOR THE LOSS OF GRILDRIG by ALEXANDER POPE POPULAR BALLAD: NEVER FORGET YOUR PARENTS by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS |