Sunday Kipling

The Gipsy Trail

Rudyard Kipling

The white moth to the closing bine,

  The bee to the opened clover,

And the gipsy blood to the gipsy blood

  Ever the wide world over.

Ever the wide world over, lass,

  Ever the trail held true,

Over the world and under the world,

  And back at the last to you.

Out of the dark of the gorgio camp,

  Out of the grime and the grey

(Morning waits at the end of the world),

  Gipsy, come away!

The wild boar to the sun-dried swamp,

  The red crane to her reed,

And the Romany lass to the Romany lad,

  By the tie of a roving breed.

The pied snake to the rifted rock,

  The buck to the stony plain,

And the Romany lass to the Romany lad,

  And both to the road again.

Both to the road again, again!

  Out on a clean sea-track --

Follow the cross of the gipsy trail

  Over the world and back!

Follow the Romany patteran

   North where the blue bergs sail,

And the bows are grey with the frozen spray,

   And the masts are shod with mail.

Follow the Romany patteran

  Sheer to the Austral Light,

Where the besom of God is the wild South wind,

  Sweeping the sea-floors white.

Follow the Romany patteran

  West to the sinking sun,

Till the junk-sails lift through the houseless drift.

  And the east and west are one.

Follow the Romany patteran

  East where the silence broods

By a purple wave on an opal beach

  In the hush of the Mahim woods.

"The wild hawk to the wind-swept sky,

  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."

The heart of a man to the heart of a maid --

  Light of my tents, be fleet.

Morning waits at the end of the world,

  And the world is all at our feet!

Written in 1892 while on an extended tour through the US and Canada with his new bride, this particular poem appeals to me.  Though I did my travel in reverse of Kipling, I am a gypsy soul, always looking to the horizon for the next adventure.  The list of nations we've visited grows yearly, and I will travel till the day I'm physically incapable of doing so.

~The DO