Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A SONG OF LONESOMENESS, by WILSON PUGSLEY MACDONALD


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A SONG OF LONESOMENESS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: When you are out in the westland and grow lonesome
Last Line: You will find the sage-brush in my hair and the cactus through my heart.
Subject(s): Solitude; Loneliness


WHEN you are out in the Westland and grow lonesome for the East
You can drown your care in the champagne air and the sky's eternal feast.
But when you are back in the Eastland and are hungry for the West
You cannot find, in the peopled towns, a crumb for your deep unrest.

When you are lost in the sage-brush, and grow weary for the rose,
The day dies down on a heap of flowers and the night with fragrance flows.
But when you are choked in a crashing street, and yearn for the mesa's moan,
There isn't a hole where you can crawl and talk with your God alone.

When you grow tired of the spinning-wheel, that weaves in the town her loom,
You cannot flee from her gnawing voice, which sings in your ear like doom.
But when you tire in the joyous West, at the sunset's crimson bars,
You can ease your head on a couch of wind and cover your limbs with stars.

My heart is away in the wild-lands, my soul is lost in the West --
The tribe of her countless wild-flowers is marching across my breast;
The wing of her crooning wild wind is cool to my fevered eyes.
I'm full of a savage thirst for blue and the endless sweep of skies.

I would away from the town to-day and out where the clean stars shine --
The wind in my ear like a sweetheart's voice, the air on my tongue like wine.
And when I lie at the sky-line's rim, where I and this life must part,
You will find the sage-brush in my hair and the cactus through my heart.





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