Over the woodland's western walls
In the dawn there's a voice that calls,—

Calls some sweet inscrutable thing,
And sets my feet to wandering!

Why I fare I do not know,
Nor by what devious paths I go,

But I must up and out and away,
Vagrant, vagabond, estray,

Thrall to the voice that calls and calls
Over the woodland's western walls!

Time is but as sand in the glass
Where I loiter and where I pass;

Time is but as the thistle-drift,
Tossed on the winds that sing and shift.

More to me is the wayside flower
Than all of grandeur and all of power.

Haply I have been summoned to see
Where life's dearest treasures be!

Haply I must learn again,
Through stress and sacrifice and pain,

To know that the things of largest worth
Lie close to the throbbing heart of earth!