Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936). Verse: 1885–1918. 1922.
The Gipsy Trail
T
The bee to the opened clover,
And the gipsy blood to the gipsy blood
Ever the wide world over.
Ever the trail held true,
Over the world and under the world,
And back at the last to you.
Out of the grime and the gray
(Morning waits at the end of the world),
Gipsy, come away!
The red crane to her reed,
And the Romany lass to the Romany lad
By the tie of a roving breed.
The buck to the stony plain,
And the Romany lass to the Romany lad,
And both to the road again.
Out on a clean sea-track—
Follow the cross of the gipsy trail
Over the world and back!
North where the blue bergs sail,
And the bows are gray with the frozen spray,
And the masts are shod with mail.
Sheer to the Austral Light,
Where the besom of God is the wild South wind,
Sweeping the sea-floors white.
West to the sinking sun,
Till the junk-sails lift through the houseless drift,
And the east and the west are one.
East where the silence broods
By a purple wave on an opal beach
In the hush of the Mahim woods.
The deer to the wholesome wold
And the heart of a man to the heart of a maid,
As it was in the days of old.”
Light of my tents, be fleet.
Morning waits at the end of the world,
And the world is all at our feet!