The Wanderer

A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916)

To see the clouds his spirit yearned toward so

Over new mountains piled and unploughed waves,

Back of old-storied spires and architraves

To watch Arcturus rise or Fomalhaut,

And roused by street-cries in strange tongues when day

Flooded with gold some domed metropolis,

Between new towers to waken and new bliss

Spread 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 road

To 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 forth

Sail in the clear depths of the tropic sky,

And swallows in the sunset where they fly

Over 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 aloud

For joy to sojourn in a world so fair.

Back of his footsteps as he journeyed fell

Range after range; ahead blue hills emerged.

Before him tireless to applaud it surged

The sweet interminable spectacle.

And like the west behind a sundown sea

Shone the past joys his memory retraced,

And bright as the blue east he always faced

Beckoned the loves and joys that were to be.

From every branch a blossom for his brow

He gathered, singing down Life’s flower-lined road,

And youth impelled his spirit as he strode

Like 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 globe

The season’s emulative splendors are,

That veiled divinity whose beams transpire

From 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 hides

One gem most pure a casket of pure gold.

It was too rich a lesser thing to bold;

It was not large enough for aught besides.

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Poems in English 

• A New Year’s Resolution to Leave Dundee by William Topaz McGonagall by Anglo File
• A Humble Heroine by William Topaz McGonagall by Anglo File
• A Descriptive Poem on the Silvery Tay by William Topaz McGonagall by Anglo File
• A Christmas Carol by William Topaz McGonagall by Anglo File
• On The Porch At The Frost Place, Franconia, N. H. by William Matthews by Anglo File
• On the Nativity of Christ by William Dunbar by William Dunbar
• On a Soldier Fallen in the Philippines by William Vaughn Moody by Anglo File
• Ode to My Guitar by William Wright Harris by Anglo File
• No Return by William Matthews by Anglo File
• Mingus At The Showplace by William Matthews by Anglo File
• Memory by William Browne by Anglo File
• Lament for the Makers by William Dunbar by William Dunbar
• Job Interview by William Matthews by Anglo File
• In Honour of the City of London by William Dunbar by William Dunbar
• Homer’s Seeing-Eye Dog by William Matthews by Anglo File
• Gloucester Moods by William Vaughn Moody by Anglo File
• Earliest Spring by William Dean Howells by Anglo File
• Composed Upon Westminster Bridge by William Wordsworth by Anglo File
• Britannia’s Pastorals by William Browne by Anglo File
• Between the Dusk of a Summer Night by William Ernest Henley by Anglo File

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