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Last
Songs from Vagabondia
by
Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
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THE
ADVENTURERS
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WE are
the adventurers who come
Before the merchants and the priests;
Our only legacy from home,
A wisdom older than the East’s.
Soldiers of Fortune, we unfurl
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5 |
The
banners of a forlorn hope,
Leaving the city smoke to curl
O’er dingy roofs where puppets mope.
We are the Ishmaelites of earth
Who at the crossroads beat the drum;
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10 |
None
guess our lineage nor our birth,
The flag we serve nor whence we come.
We claim a Sire that no man knows,
The Emperor of Night and Days,
Who saith to Caesar, "Go,"—he
goes,
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15 |
| To Alexander,
"Stay,"—he stays.
Out of a greater town than Tyre,
We march to conquer and control
The golden hill-lands of Desire,
The Nicaraguas of the soul.
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We have cast in our lot with Truth;
We will not flinch nor stay the hand,
Till on the last skyline of youth
We look down on his fair new land.
We put from port without a fear,
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For
Freedom on this Spanish Main;
And the great wind that bore us here
Will drive our galleys home again.
If not, we can lie down and die,
Content to perish with our peers,
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30 |
So one
more rood we gained thereby
For Love’s Dominion through the years. |
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