Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts 1860–1943

Afoot

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COMES the lure of green things growing,

Comes the call of waters flowing—

And the wayfarer desire

Moves and wakes and would be going.

Hark the migrant hosts of June

Marching nearer noon by noon!

Hark the gossip of the grasses

Bivouacked beneath the moon!

Long the quest and far the ending

When my wayfarer is wending—

When desire is once afoot,

Doom behind and dream attending!

In his ears the phantom chime

Of incommunicable rhyme,

He shall chase the fleeting camp-fires

Of the Bedouins of Time.

Farer by uncharted ways,

Dumb as death to plaint or praise,

Unreturning he shall journey,

Fellow to the nights and days;

Till upon the outer bar

Stilled the moaning currents are,

Till the flame achieves the zenith,

Till the moth attains the star,

Till through laughter and through tears

Fair the final peace appears,

And about the watered pastures

Sink to sleep the nomad years!