The Wanderer

    To Youth there comes a whisper out of the west:
        "O loiterer, hasten where there waits for thee
    A life to build, a love therein to nest,
        And a man's work, serving the age to be."

    Peace, peace awhile!    Before his tireless feet
        Hill beyond hill the road in sunlight goes;
    He breathes the breath of morning, clear and sweet,
        And his eyes love the high eternal snows.

Henry John Newbolt

Sir Henry John Newbolt was an English poet and author, famous for his ballads such as 'Vitaï Lampada'. He graduated from Oxford and was called to the bar, but he is better remembered for his literary contributions than his legal career. Newbolt served as a government advisor on military and naval literature during World War I. He was knighted in 1915 for his services to literature. Newbolt's work often reflected themes of patriotism and duty.

Henry John Newbolt

Ode for Trafalgar Day, 1905

Henry John Newbolt, Simple Poetry

When I Remember

Henry John Newbolt, Simple Poetry

Rondel*

Henry John Newbolt, Simple Poetry

He Fell Among Thieves

Henry John Newbolt, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Wanderer

The gleam of household sunshine ends,
And here no longer can I rest;
Farewell! - You will not speak, my friends,
Unfriendly of your parted guest.

O well for him that finds a friend,
Or makes a friend whereer he come,
And loves the world from end to end,
And wanders on from home to home!

O happy he, and fit to live,
On whom a happy home has power
To make him trust his life, and give
His fealty to the halcyon hour!

I count you kind, I hold you true;
But what may follow who can tell?
Give me a hand-and you-and you-
And deem me grateful, and farewell!

Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Wanderer

There is nobody on the road
But I,
And no beseeming abode
I can try
For shelter, so abroad
I must lie.

The stars feel not far up,
And to be
The lights by which I sup
Glimmeringly,
Set out in a hollow cup
Over me.

They wag as though they were
Panting for joy
Where they shine, above all care,
And annoy,
And demons of despair -
Life's alloy.

Sometimes outside the fence
Feet swing past,
Clock-like, and then go hence,
Till at last
There is a silence, dense,
Deep, and vast.

A wanderer, witch-drawn
To and fro,
To-morrow, at the dawn,
On I go,
And where I rest anon
Do not know!

Yet it's meet this bed of hay
And roofless plight;
For there's a house of clay,

Thomas Hardy

The Wanderer

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 s...

Alan Seeger

Youth

    His song of dawn outsoars the joyful bird,
        Swift on the weary road his footfall comes;
    The dusty air that by his stride is stirred
        Beats with a buoyant march of fairy drums.
    "Awake, O Earth! thine ancient slumber break;
    To the new day, O slumbrous Earth, awake!"

    Yet long ago that merry march began,
        His feet are older than the path they tread;
    His music is the morning-song of man,
        His stride the stride of all the valiant dead;
    His youngest hopes are memories, and his eyes
    Deep with the old, old dream that never dies.

Henry John Newbolt

The Traveller

Excerpt from "Gertrude Of Wyoming"


Apart there was a deep untrodden grot,
Where oft the reading hours sweet Gertrude wore;
Tradition had not named its lonely spot;
But here (methinks) might India's sons explore
Their father's dust, or lift, perchance of yore,
Their voice to the great Spirit: rocks sublime
To human art a sportive semblance bore,
And yellow lichens coloured all the clime,
Like moonlight battlements, and towers decayed by time.

But high in amphitheatre above,
Gay tinted woods their massy foliage threw:
Breathed but an air of heaven, and all the grove
As if instinct with living spirit grew,
Rolling its verdant gulfs of every hue;
And now suspended was the pleasing din,
Now from a murmur faint it swelled anew,
Like the...

Thomas Campbell

The Wanderer

Over the pool of sleep
The night mists creep,
Then faint thin light and then clear day,
Noontide, and lingering afternoon;
Then that Wanderer, the Moon
Wandering her old wild way.

How many spirits follow
Her in that dark hollow!
Like a lost lamb she roams on high
Through the cold and soundless sky,
And stares down into her deep
Reflection in the pool of sleep.

How many follow
Her in that lone hollow!
She sees them not nor would she hear
Though both shape and sound were clear,
But stares, stares into the pool
Of her fear and beauty full.

Far in strange gay skies
She pales and dies,
Forgetting that bright transitory
Reflection of astonished glory,
Nor heeds the spirits that follow
Her into day's bright hollow.

John Frederick Freeman