I'VE sung in a wayward fashion The song of a rugged heart, With less of power than of passion, With more of desire than art, Tales of roving and roaming, Stories of daring done, While ye wait for the poet coming— The singer of later on. From drear and deserted places, Where the wastes of creation lie, Where the pitiless hail-cloud races Over the merciless sky, On the offside of desolation When the fog is fetid and dense, In the watchman's reeking station Guarding the sliprail fence, Tales of the great unholy, Lazily, lovingly, long, I've gathered in byways lowly And fashioned them into song. The rime of the roving fellow Who dreams by the midnight fire, When the autumn leaves are yellow And sere as his youth's desire. The dirge of the loosened boulder And the thing that gasps beneath, While the hod is yet on the shoulder, The pipe is yet in the teeth, Of the dynamite in the boring, That didn't go off when it should, And the pick that went exploring, And the pal who left for good— For ever the signal reddens, For ever is danger near, And the sound of the up-train deadens The down-train's roar in the ear. Thus have I sung their story, That wondrous story of theirs, The navvies' sorrow and glory, And death that is unawares, But under the rougher singing, In a quivering undertone, Perchance you will hear it ringing, A song that is all mine own, Out of its rough environs, The roar of the running cars, The lilt of the canting irons, The rune of the lifting bars, Apart from the navvy quarrels, Card-school riot and song, Manners, merits and morals, And chivalry—going wrong— Perchance that you will discover Under the rugged art The voice of the nature lover, The song of the singer's heart. A poet will follow after, A poet of later years, To sing of their joy and laughter, And weep for their woe and tears, Striking the tuneful lyre Greater than me by far, As the rose outrivals the briar, As the sun outrivals the star, And the songs I sing in the gloaming May turn to nought in the dawn That beams for the singer coming, The poet of later on. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE DUNES OF INDIANA by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SONGS AND THE POET (FOR SARA TEASDALE) by LOUIS UNTERMEYER WRITTEN FOR MY SON, AND SPOKEN BY HIM AT HIS FIRST PUTTING ON BREECHES by MARY BARBER THE WORD by WILLIAM WALSHAM HOW THE SPIDER AND THE FLY by MARY HOWITT RORY O'MORE; OR, ALL FOR GOOD LUCK by SAMUEL LOVER DEAD IN HIS BED by ADDIE LUCIA BALLOU VERSES TO -- --, ON THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THEIR MARRIAGE by BERNARD BARTON |