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Oft
As I dream by day
There comes the call of old and distant lands
And in my heart
I long
To travel far to scenes of rich delight,
Of colour, of romance and hoary age.

I yearn for tropic glare,—
Its lavishness, its heat,
The splendour that my mind has given it
As I,
From earliest youth till now,
Have wonderingly
Imagined what these pagan lands must be.

I wish
For scenes so varied and for sights so strange,—
Quaintly exotic,—yes,
But yet familiar too.
What joy
As on my way I went
To see such faces and to hear such tongues;
To stir
From out the memory of centuries
The old traditions and the tales they tell;
To see
The unaccustomed symmetry and grace
Of mosque and dome;
To seek
Beneath luxurious palms
Such lotus-eating joys as ne'er I knew.

But soon—
E'er I have thought of half the joys
That I would know—
There comes a weariness quite inescapable;
Such pleasures pall,
And back my drowsy spirit gladly comes
To scenes
Much nearer home.
And once again
As I regard this wondrous land of ours
My soul is glad
And fills again with rapture and a joy
That I shall never know in lands afar.