There's sunshine in the heart of me,
My blood sings in the breeze;
The mountains are a part of me,
I'm fellow to the trees.
My golden youth I'm squandering,
Sun-libertine am I;
A-wandering, a-wandering,
Until the day I die.
I was once,
I declare, a Stone-Age man, And I roomed in the cool of a cave;
I have known,
I will swear, in a new life-span, The fret and the sweat of a slave:
For far over all that folks hold worth, There lives and there leaps in meA love of the lowly things of earth, And a passion to be free.
To pitch my tent with no prosy plan, To range and to change at will;
To mock at the mastership of man, To seek Adventure's thrill.
Carefree to be, as a bird that sings; To go my own sweet way;
To reck not at all what may befall, But to live and to love each day.
To make my body a temple pure Wherein I dwell serene;
To care for the things that shall endure, The simple, sweet and clean.
To oust out envy and hate and rage, To breathe with no alarm;
For Nature shall be my anchorage, And none shall do me harm.
To shun all lures that debauch the soul, The orgied rites of the rich;
To eat my crust as a rover must With the rough-neck down in the ditch.
To trudge by his side whate'er betide; To share his fire at night;
To call him friend to the long trail-end, And to read his heart aright.
To scorn all strife, and to view all life With the curious eyes of a child;
From the plangent sea to the prairie, From the slum to the heart of the Wild.
From the red-rimmed star to the speck of sand, From the vast to the greatly small;
For I know that the whole for good is planned, And I want to see it all.
To see it all, the wide world-way, From the fig-leaf belt to the Pole;
With never a one to say me nay, And none to cramp my soul.
In belly-pinch I will pay the price, But God! let me be free;
For once I know in the long ago, They made a slave of me.
In a flannel shirt from earth's clean dirt, Here, pal, is my calloused hand!
Oh,
I love each day as a rover may, Nor seek to understand.
To enjoy is good enough for me; The gipsy of God am I;
Then here's a hail to each flaring dawn!
And here's a cheer to the night that's gone!
And may I go a-roaming on Until the day I die!
Then every star shall sing to
Its song of liberty;
And every morn shall bring to
Its mandate to be free.
In every throbbing vein of meI'll feel the vast Earth-call;
O body, heart and brain of
Praise Him who made it all!
