Beyond the Walls

The firelight plays since dusk began
To gather in the room,
Beyond the pane the daylight’s span
Grows to the evening gloom;
But my heart is out with the gipsy man
In his lair among the broom.

Beside the farm both barn and stack
Dark in the steading rise,
Up in the loaning green, the track
Along the firwood lies,
Where the gipsy sits with his brows of black,
And the black light in his eyes.

He marks the swift owl skim the trees
When twilight turns to grey,
He hears the whisper up the leas
Before the coming day,
And the secret hours of the world he sees
And the soul of night at play.

His ceiling is the drooping bough,
The fir-trees’ ragged limb,
When from the hills the western sough
Sings o’er the lowlands dim;
And the polestar, hanging above the Plough,
Is the lantern-flame for him.

O weary roof and crowding wall
That bar the scented air!
O chain and key whose ceaseless thrall
Lies on a world of care,
There are no bolts shot in the firwood tall
But the joy of life is there!

O to be out when spring has drest
The green moss for a bed,
To roam by plain and wooded crest
Till the rose-hips turn to red;
And to lay me down for the last long rest,
With the great sky overhead!