O RARE delight of seeing, O joy unchecked of being Abroad and free, in this wide world of ours! Such pleasure the birds have, Winging o'er wood and wave, O'er meadows bright with dew, bright with perpetual flowers. Still fares the wanderer forth, And still the exhaustless Earth With all her treasures greets her wayward child; For him, on all her shores, She spreads her countless stores, In sunlit beauty strewn, or solemn grandeur piled. The plain at early light; At noon, the mountain height; At eve, the valley, with its shadows deep; At night, the cataract, Or ocean's boundless tract, With ceaseless rush of waves, or murmurs soft as sleep. To-day, the crowded mart, The sacred shrines of art, The domes of empire, the cathedral vast; To-morrow, the wild woods, Or desert solitudes, With shattered temples strewn and fragments of the past. Tempt not my feet to stay; Along the upward way, Across the earth, across the sparkling sea, Beyond the distant isles, The far horizon smiles, And where its voices call, thither my steps must be! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE VANITY OF THE WORLD by FRANCIS QUARLES IN MEMORY OF WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE PORTRAIT OF A LADY by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS THE LOVER AND THE BIRDS by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM THE LOVE SONNETS OF PROTEUS: 45. FAREWELL TO JULIET (7) by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT THE BEGGAR AND THE DIVINE by JOHN BYROM |