I hunt for the golden stag.
You may smile, my friends, but I
pursue the vision that eludes me.
I run across hills and dales, I wander
through nameless lands, because I am
hunting for the golden stag.
You come and buy in the market
and go back to your homes laden with
goods, but the spell of the homeless
winds has touched me I know not when
and where.
I have no care in my heart; all my
belongings I have left far behind me.
I run across hills and dales, I wander
through nameless lands--because I am

When I go alone at night to my
love-tryst, birds do not sing, the wind
does not stir, the houses on both sides
of the street stand silent.
It is my own anklets that grow loud
at every step and I am ashamed.
When I sit on my balcony and listen
for his footsteps, leaves do not rustle
on the trees, and the water is still in
the river like the sword on the knees
of a sentry fallen asleep.
It is my own heart that beats wildly
--I do not know how to quiet it.
When my love comes and sits by

Love heeds no more the sighing of the wind
Against the perfect flowers: thy garden's close
Is grown a wilderness, where none shall find
One strayed, last petal of one last year's rose.

O bright, bright hair! O mouth like a ripe fruit!
Can famine be so nigh to harvesting?
Love, that was songful, with a broken lute
In grass of graveyards goeth murmuring.

Let the wind blow against the perfect flowers,
And all thy garden change and glow with spring:
Love is grown blind with no more count of hours

Frosty-white and cold it lies
Underneath the fretful skies;
Snowflakes flutter where the red
Banners of the poppies spread,
And the drifts are wide and deep
Where the lilies fell asleep.

But the sunsets o'er it throw
Flame-like splendor, lucent glow,
And the moonshine makes it gleam
Like a wonderland of dream,
And the sharp winds all the day
Pipe and whistle shrilly gay.

Safe beneath the snowdrifts lie
Rainbow buds of by-and-by;
In the long, sweet days of spring
Music of bluebells shall ring,

On Walden's Range at morning time
The sun shone brightly down;
It shone across the winding Page
Near Murrurundi town.

It glittered o'er the Burning Mount,
Where murky shadows fell
Across the path to travellers known
To some, alas, too well.

There stands a simple block of stone,
Erected as a mark
To show the spot where he fought and died,
That gallant Peter Clarke.

And if you will but list awhile,
To you I will relate
What happened there to Peter Clarke
And Jimmy Clarke, his mate.

A wanderer is man from his birth.
He was born in a ship
On the breast of the river of Time;
Brimming with wonder and joy
He spreads out his arms to the light,
Rivets his gaze on the banks of the stream.

As what he sees is, so have his thoughts been.
Whether he wakes,
Where the snowy mountainous pass,
Echoing the screams of the eagles,
Hems in its gorges the bed
Of the new-born clear-flowing stream;
Whether he first sees light
Where the river in gleaming rings
Sluggishly winds through the plain;

The furl of fresh-leaved dogrose down
His cheeks the forth-and-flaunting sun
Had swarthed about with lion-brown
Before the Spring was done.

His locks like all a ravel-rope’s-end,
With hempen strands in spray—
Fallow, foam-fallow, hanks—fall’n off their ranks,
Swung down at a disarray.

Or like a juicy and jostling shock
Of bluebells sheaved in May
Or wind-long fleeces on the flock
A day off shearing day.

Then over his turnèd temples—here—
Was a rose, or, failing that,

Brighter shone the golden shadows;
On the cool wind softly came
The low, sweet tones of happy flowers,
Singing little Violet's name.
'Mong the green trees was it whispered,
And the bright waves bore it on
To the lonely forest flowers,
Where the glad news had not gone.

Thus the Frost-King lost his kingdom,
And his power to harm and blight.
Violet conquered, and his cold heart
Warmed with music, love, and light;
And his fair home, once so dreary,
Gay with lovely Elves and flowers,
Brought a joy that never faded

He comes, - he comes, - the Frost Spirit comes!
You may trace his footsteps now
On the naked woods and the blasted fields
And the brown hill's withered brow.
He has smitten the leaves of the gray old trees
Where their pleasant green came forth,
And the winds, which follow wherever he goes,
Have shaken them down to earth.

He comes, - he comes, - the Frost Spirit comes!
From the frozen Labrador,
From the icy bridge of the northern seas,
Which the white bear wanders o'er,
Where the fisherman's sail is stiff with ice,

I1.
Breathers of wisdom won without a quest,
.
Quaint uncouth dreamers, voices high and strange;
.
Flutists of lands where beauty hath no change,
.
And wintry grief is a forgotten guest,
.
Sweet murmurers of everlasting rest,
.
For whom glad days have ever yet to run,
.
And moments are as aeons, and the sun
.
But ever sunken half-way toward the west.1.
Often to me who heard you in your day,
.

With close rapt ears, it could not choose but seem
.