Poems (Radford)/A Wanderer

by Dollie Radford

A Wanderer

I am a bird that beats upon the air,
 With tired wings that may not fold in death,
With eyes that may no longer pierce despair,
 With broken flight that strives and faints for breath,
   I fall within your gate—
Ah take me in and hold me for a day
 Beside your hearth that I may feel its flame,
And when the fire has dropped and burned away,
 I will fly forth again from whence I came;
   You shall not know my fate.

I am a wanderer through the starless night,
 With secrets of the morning in my breast,
I bear a deathless vision of the light
 That flows at dawn about my waiting nest;
   Enclose me with your hands—
The shining dews are hidden in mine eyes,
 The sweetness of the woods is in my mouth,
And from your door I may no more arise,
 So swiftly have I flown to find the South,
   From out the icy lands.

Oh hasten to your door, the night is long,
 The coldness clings about me like a shroud,
Are all the prison bars of sleep so strong,
 You come not forth to one who calls aloud;
   Has Heaven no further care
For all the pain and passion of my doom,
 The gathered anguish of a storm that flings
Its cry against the silence of your room;
 I am a wanderer with tired wings,
   That beat upon the air.