Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, I WANT TO GO WANDERING, by NICHOLAS VACHEL LINDSAY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

I WANT TO GO WANDERING, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: I want to go wandering. Who shall declare
Last Line: Wandering. ...
Alternate Author Name(s): Lindsay, Vachel
Subject(s): Birds; Eagles; Mountain Climbing; Wandering & Wanderers; Wanderlust; Vagabonds; Tramps; Hoboes


I WANT to go wandering. Who shall declare
I will regret if I dare?

To the rich days of age—
To some mid-afternoon—
A wide fenceless prairie,
A lonely old tune,
Ant-hills and sunflowers,
And sunset too soon.

Behind the brown mountain
The sun will go down;
I shall climb, I shall climb,
To the sumptuous crown;
To the rocks of the summit,
And find some strange things:—
Some echo of echoes
When the thunder-wind sings;
Old Spanish necklaces,
Indian rings,
Or a feeble old eagle
With great, dragging wings.
He may leave me and soar;
But if he shall die,
I shall bury him deep
While the thunder-winds cry.

And there, as the last of my earth-nights go:
What is the thing I shall know?

With a feather cast off from his wings
I shall write, be it revel or psalm,
Or whisper of redwood, or cypress, or palm,—
The treasure of dream that he brings.

The soul of the eagle will call,
Whether he lives or he dies:—
The cliff and the prairie call,
The sage-brush and starlight sing,
And the songs of my far-away Sangamon call
From the plume of the bird of the Rockies,
And midnight's omnipotent wing—
The last of my earth-nights will ring
With cries from a far haunted river,
and all of my wandering,
Wandering,
Wandering,
Wandering. ...





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