dots-menu
×

Home  »  A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895  »  The Happy Wanderer

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

Percy Addleshaw b 186–

The Happy Wanderer

HE is the happy wanderer, who goes

Singing upon his way, with eyes awake

To every scene, with ears alert to take

The sweetness of all sounds; who loves and knows

The secrets of the highway, and the rose

Holds fairer for the wounds the briars make;

Who welcomes rain, that he his thirst may slake,—

The sun, because it dries his dripping clothes;

Treasures experience beyond all store,

Careless if pain or pleasure he shall win,

So that his knowledge widens more and more

Ready each hour to worship or to sin;

Until tired, wise, content, he halts before

The sign o’ the Grave, a cool and quiet inn.