Post by intrepidcamper on Nov 19, 2004 17:27:52 GMT -5
REBEL AND ROVER
My neighbors dubbed me a vagabond,
A rebel, an idling clod,
Because I refused to pound my feet
On the cobblestones of a city street,
To gild my belly with wine and meat,
To bow to their golden god.
They put me down as a ne’er-do-well,
A shirker of sober toil,
Because I bolted their wolves’ pack,
Loped a lone trail, and never turned back,
Scoffed at the game they sought to track,
And wheeled from their paltry spoil.
They wagged their heads with concern for me;
Sprawled by a woodland pool,
I was content at dawn to lie
And watch the triumphant eagle fly
Scrawling his freedom over the sky—<br> For this they called me a fool.
God rest you content, O gentlemen!
I break from your glittering bars,
To throb with the ultimate eagle’s flight,
To know the trivial world from his height,
The wild song of the wind at night,
And the neighborliness of stars.
Hail and farewell, you bridled all!
When the gold of your god turns gilt,
I shall have minted the gold of the sun,
Into my arteries I shall have run
The wines of contentment, one by one,
And never a drop shall have spilt.
And never a grace I’ll ask of the world,
Nor pity, nor earthly token;
Only a brook and a bannock-bread,
The loyal lips of the woman I wed,
And cool wet moss to pillow my head
When my wild wings are broken.
Lew Sarett
The Collected Poems of Lew Sarett 1941, Henry Holt and Co. publishers
My neighbors dubbed me a vagabond,
A rebel, an idling clod,
Because I refused to pound my feet
On the cobblestones of a city street,
To gild my belly with wine and meat,
To bow to their golden god.
They put me down as a ne’er-do-well,
A shirker of sober toil,
Because I bolted their wolves’ pack,
Loped a lone trail, and never turned back,
Scoffed at the game they sought to track,
And wheeled from their paltry spoil.
They wagged their heads with concern for me;
Sprawled by a woodland pool,
I was content at dawn to lie
And watch the triumphant eagle fly
Scrawling his freedom over the sky—<br> For this they called me a fool.
God rest you content, O gentlemen!
I break from your glittering bars,
To throb with the ultimate eagle’s flight,
To know the trivial world from his height,
The wild song of the wind at night,
And the neighborliness of stars.
Hail and farewell, you bridled all!
When the gold of your god turns gilt,
I shall have minted the gold of the sun,
Into my arteries I shall have run
The wines of contentment, one by one,
And never a drop shall have spilt.
And never a grace I’ll ask of the world,
Nor pity, nor earthly token;
Only a brook and a bannock-bread,
The loyal lips of the woman I wed,
And cool wet moss to pillow my head
When my wild wings are broken.
Lew Sarett
The Collected Poems of Lew Sarett 1941, Henry Holt and Co. publishers
