The wanderers

Wandering, ever wandering,

Their eyelids freshened with the wind of the sea

Blown up the cliffs at sunset, their cheeks cooled

With meditative shadows of hushed leaves

That have been drowsing in the woods all day,

And certain fires of sunrise in their eyes.

They wander, and the white roads under them

Crumble into fine dust behind their feet,

For they return not; life, a long white road,

Winds ever from the dark into the dark,

And they, as days, return not; they go on

For ever, with the travelling stars; the night

Curtains them, being wearied, and the dawn

Awakens them unwearied; they go on.

They know the winds of all the earth, they know

The dust of many highways, and the stones

Of cities set for landmarks on the road.

Theirs is the world, and all the glory of it,

Theirs, because they forego it, passing on

Into the freedom of the elements;

Wandering, ever wandering,

Because life holds not anything so good

As to be free of yesterday, and bound

Towards a new to-morrow; and they wend

Into a world of unknown faces, where

It may be there are faces waiting them,

Faces of friendly strangers, not the long

Intolerable monotony of friends.

The joy of earth is yours, O wanderers,

The only joy of the old earth, to wake,

As each new dawn is patiently renewed,

With foreheads fresh against a fresh young sky.

To be a little further on the road,

A little nearer somewhere, some few steps

Advanced into the future, and removed

By some few counted milestones from the past;

God gives you this good gift, the only gift

That God, being repentant, has to give.

Wanderers, you have the sunrise and the stars;

And we, beneath our comfortable roofs,

Lamplight, and daily fire upon the hearth,

And four walls of a prison, and sure food.

But God has given you freedom, wanderers!