Gipsy Feet

Oh, gipsy hearts are many enough, but gipsy feet are few! Many’s the one that loves to dream night-long of stars and dew: Many’s the one that loves the scent of wood-smoke by the way, And turns a leaping longing heart to every dawn of day. Gipsy hearts are many enough, but gipsy feet are few.⁠— Ah, how ill it is to bide unloosed the long year through! Up and down the loud gray streets, stared at, staring back, Through tarnished trails of the staggering sun and soot-fog ochre-black;⁠— Dressed in heavy and sober togs, eating of heavy fare, Hailed by only the screaming street, “Mind! step lively there!” Crook-backed over a dusty desk,—bothering to and fro There in the dull and airless house,—ah, to cut and go!⁠— Up the hill-roads into the day! Over the sea-ward fells, Watch the thistle-down dip, and hear the thin sheep’s huddling bells; Run like fire along the field, worship the heart of the wood, Kneel by the spring that splits the rock, and find the white rain good. —Oh, gipsy hearts are many enough, but gipsy feet are few; And secret gods must we worship still, if we worship fire and dew. For we must bend at the dusty desk, and over the counter lean,⁠— Toil and moil in the sun-starved house, though leaves blow red or green. God, great God of the wind’s caress, God of the sea’s salute, Why are we chained and muzzled and meshed more than our brother the brute? Shall there be never a day that all of the gipsy hearts may greet, Laughing out at the lure of the sun for the lift of the gipsy feet? But oh, though that day is far to come, and the feet forget to go free, Pray God that the hearts may not forget the hurt and the ecstasy! Pray God that never the fret may fail when the Spring comes over the year, That never the thin gay autumn dawns may seem less wild and dear. For shall it not be the height of Heaven, wonderful, swift, and sweet, If into the paths of perilous death may wander the gipsy feet? May wander free, with the risk of the road, the road that the glad Dead know, Out where the fires of God flame high, and the winds of God lean low!