Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Spike: or, Victoria College Review, June 1904

Wanderlust

page 52

Wanderlust.

"The wild hawk to the wind-swept sky,
The deer to the wholesome wold."

—Gypsy Song.

In the charm of lazy days I rode upon the upland trails;
Or out beyond the tide-rip fed the fill of flawless sails;
Flicked the fly over running reaches; dreamed to the lyric of lapping sea;
Or watched the wing of a querulous rover,—O life o' mine, fancy-free!

- - - -

Our of the carol of ripple-reaches and challenge that rang in the wild swan's call,
The Wanderlust went unto my heart with the whisper that frets like a gall
"Take the rifle from the rack, I'll show the spoor the hunters missed;
"I'll fill your sails to the ends of Earth, O lad, if you will but list !"

- - - -

Loth was I and lief was I : full loth for her laughing eyes:
But lief to compass the stave of Life note and note under changing skies!
"Follow, Oh follow, thro' lift of water, rain, and rift, and tangle and mire,
'For I go adown the wind's way, the will's way, the way of all desire!"

- - - -

Blue to the freezing light the homestead smoke in a curl wrote "Stay!"
And my chestnut, sick for saddle and fence, looked out of his stall with a neigh;
White the throat and rich the voice that welled the song I besought;—
But—"O lad, why wait when the sea is white with the offshore wind for your Thought?"

page 53

Oh, I slip the mark upon the page though shot with colour and throng:
I may not bide the end of it: I've read it overlong.
Riot-wine of Wanderlust, it reels throughout the heart of me;
And all the world is waiting, and the wind is on the sea.

- - - -

So the music that I made when bent above the dipping keys
Must sing along my heartstrings till I sit the stool at ease;
And the canvas where the warmth of thought was fashioned free and fair,
Can warp upon the easel till it claim my homing care.

- - - -

Break you down the embers where between the bars the purpose glowed;
Knock the ash from out the briar's bowl, where the pleasant fancies bode.
Like as Spring hath vexed the river chafing that a curb restrains,
So the heart's snows are a-melting and the fresh is in the veins.

- - - -

O my lips, I thank you for the lilt that tells me all my blood beats young;
Life, I thank thee for the trails untracked and rifle yet unslung;
For the easy swinging stride, for the keenness of the viewless quest,
And the promise of the quarry, and the lure to all unrest!

- - - -

Strung with hope is the blue rim's bow, and the shaft it is the ship I loose!
Whatso thing that life may be I chase it with a running noose.
West are the days, O vagrant heart, of the vaunt you were fancy-free,
And now your king is a voice, and you must list to what word speaks he.