Classic Poem

Oh, Duty is bare and the sark of Care is ragged and thin and old;
I will cast her aside and take for my bride a Muse in a cloth of gold.
I have heard the call of the wind-swept pine and there bides no rest for me;
My soul is drenched with clear starshine and drunk with the wine of the sea.

What care I now for the broken vow and the word by the deed gainsaid?
Ere the night was torn with the sun, new-born, my life to my fate was wed.
I am going South to a bayou-mouth where quiet forever reigns,
Where the migrant flight of the geese by night and the sober-stalking cranes

And the stars that creep o'er the Crystal Deep in the course of the Southern night
Not yet complain of the lesser Cain who comes with his gun to smite.
There the long low moan of the ocean's tone as it rides on the wind from far
Doth make one think that he stands on the brink of a sea on another star,

Not here where men, again and again, in a treadmill, day by day,
Go 'round and 'round in a narrow bound and labour their joy away.
Ere my heart grow sad and the joy I've had fade out and die like a dream,
And my soul peak thin mid the hurry and din and the noise of hammers and steam,

(For the Bought and the Sold be the getting of gold), I will leave the City behind,
And my soul shall be as wide and free as a heaven-searching wind.
Persuade me not for a passion hot and a wild, wind-drifted cry
Sweeps over me like the tides of the sea — I must go or my soul will die.

I have heard the call of the wind-swept pine and there bides no rest for me.
My soul is drunk with clear starshine and drenched with the wine of the sea,
And Duty is bare and the sark of Care is ragged and thin and old —
I will cast her aside and take for a bride a Muse in a cloth of gold.