And all the dark that self employs
Will teem—so travel then with joys.
Or else in ruins consummate
A death that waited long and late,
And all the burning towns of blood
Will shake and fall from sane and good,
And you with ruined sight will see
A lost and ruined Rome. And thee?
Cracked statue mended by noon’s light
Yet innerscaped with soul’s midnight.
So go not traveling with mood
Or lack of sunlight in your blood,
Such traveling has double cost,
When you and empire both are lost.
When your mind storm-drains catacomb,
And all seems graveyard rock in Rome—
Tourist, go not.
Stay home.
Stay home!
Poem from a Train Window (#ulink_f7a4e23e-2c4f-5f8a-bb7a-12d2cd3bed58)
I’ve seen a thousand homes go down the tracks
Away, away …
Late night or early morn,
There goes the house, all white, where I was born.
My traveling train
Gives back to me by moon or noontime’s rain
The house, the house, the house
Where I’m reborn again.
As common as sparrows in flight,
There flies by my front porch and me,
Out of sight, out of sight.
We are common together: common house, common weather,
Common boy on a bike on a cool dark night lawn,
Sinking in clover,
Or boy on brick street at dawn, roofing a ball:
Annie over! Annie over!
Where I’ll pop up next, Peoria or Paducah, I don’t know;
All I can say is:
Here I come, here I come,
There I go, there I go!
Always the same boy, bright-eyed as a mouse,
Always the same folks on the porch of that house,
Swinging by in the light,
Drowning deep in the night,
There they drift, there they fly
At the train whistle’s cry:
O good-bye, O good-bye.
Lawn and porch on the run; boy’s face like the sun
Looking up through the rain
As again and again, the boy who was me