Adventure

Adventure! Singing on the gale
That wails across the frozen land,
That shrills across the frozen seas,
And cracks the stiffened icy sail;
Adventure! Hear the wolves that cry
Under the lights of the Northern sky!

Adventure gloams in Norway Fjiords,
It floats white winged on Italian seas
It floats white winged on Italian seas
And walks brown eyed 'neath the purple vine;
It looms all red in velvet nights,
And flows in blood from a thousands fights.

Wine and blood, blood and wine,
Women whose lips are redder than those,
Wild sea winds and crusted brine,
O'er the world Adventure goes,
But in our town—down the wet black street,
Adventure creeps on misty feet.

Whispering tales of love and hate
Among the tall old houses there
(Crusted on hills like barnacles)
Adventure goes with streaming hair
With misty eyes, on bush clad hills
She dreams beside the dreaming rills.

Adventure! In the windy dusk
Where tea tree grows all slim and grey,
The tui pours out golden notes,
And Pan calls down the twilit way,
Adventure sits with lips apart,
With glowing eyes and beating heart!