How do the
ships of Gloucester differ from the ship _Earth_? What is the "arriving"
spoken of in the last stanza? What two possibilities does the author
suggest as to the fate of the ship? Why does he end his poem with a
question? What is the purpose of the poem? Why is it considered good?
What do you think was the author's feeling about the way the poor and
helpless are treated? Read the poem through aloud, thinking what each
line means.
ROAD-HYMN FOR THE START
WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY
Leave the early bells at chime,
Leave the kindled hearth to blaze,
Leave the trellised panes where children linger out the waking-time,
Leave the forms of sons and fathers trudging through the misty ways,
Leave the sounds of mothers taking up their sweet laborious days.
Pass them by! even while our soul
Yearns to them with keen distress.
Unto them a part is given; we will strive to see the whole.
Dear shall be the banquet table where their singing spirits press;
Dearer be our sacred hunger, and our pilgrim loneliness.
We have felt the ancient swaying
Of the earth before the sun,
On the darkened marge of midnight heard sidereal rivers playing;
Rash it was to bathe our souls there, but we plunged and all was done.
That is lives and lives behind us--lo, our journey is begun!
Careless where our face is set,
Let us take the open way.
What we are no tongue has told us: Errand-goers who forget?
Soldiers heedless of their harry? Pilgrim people gone astray?
We have heard a voice cry "Wander!" That was all we heard it say.
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