The Wanderer
To see the clouds his spirit yearned toward soOver new mountains piled and unploughed waves,Back of old-storied spires and architravesTo watch Arcturus rise or Fomalhaut,
And roused by street-cries in strange tongues when dayFlooded with gold some domed metropolis,Between new towers to waken and new blissSpread on his pillow in a wondrous way:
These were his joys. Oft under bulging crates,Coming to market with his morning load,The peasant found him early on his roadTo greet the sunrise at the city-gates,—
There where the meadows waken in its rays,Golden with mist, and the great roads commence,And backward, where the chimney-tops are dense,Cathedral-arches glimmer through the haze.
White dunes that breaking show a strip of sea,A plowman and his team against the blue,Swiss pastures musical with cowbells, too,And poplar-lined canals in Picardie,
And coast-towns where the vultures back and forthSail in the clear depths of the tropic sky,And swallows in the sunset where they flyOver gray Gothic cities in the north,
And the wine-cellar and the chorus there,The dance-hall and a face among the crowd,—Were all delights that made him sing aloudFor joy to sojourn in a world so fair.
Back of his footsteps as he journeyed fellRange after range; ahead blue hills emerged.Before him tireless to applaud it surgedThe sweet interminable spectacle.
And like the west behind a sundown seaShone the past joys his memory retraced,And bright as the blue east he always facedBeckoned the loves and joys that were to be.
From every branch a blossom for his browHe gathered, singing down Life’s flower-lined road,And youth impelled his spirit as he strodeLike winged Victory on the galley’s prow.
That Loveliness whose being sun and star,Green Earth and dawn and amber evening robe,That lamp whereof the opalescent globeThe season’s emulative splendors are,
That veiled divinity whose beams transpireFrom every pore of universal space,As the fair soul illumes the lovely face—That was his guest, his passion, his desire.
His heart the love of Beauty held as hidesOne gem most pure a casket of pure gold.It was too rich a lesser thing to hold;It was not large enough for aught besides.