Lyr Req: Wanderlust (Odell Shepard)

22 Oct 99 - 06:07 PM (#126958)
Subject: The birds were beating north again
From: [e-mail]

Seeking the name of the poet of poem "Wanderlust" First lines are:The bird were beating north again with faint and starry cries Along their ancient highway that spans the midnight skies, And out across their rush of wing, my heart went crying too

---

22 Oct 99 - 07:49 PM (#126980)
Subject: RE: Help: The birds were beating north again
From: katlaughing

Hi, wheelerb. Sorry for your friend's loss of music books. While I don't think this is the Wanderlust you are looking for, I though I would give you something to read, while I go look for others or someone else wanders in here & posts the one you want. This one is by Robert W. Service. I've only done the fist stanza, as his are LONG and too many line breaks to type in right now. I'll be back.

katlaughing

The Wanderlust has lured me to the seven lonely seas,
Has dumped me on the tailing-piles of dearth;
The Wanderlust has haled me from the morris chairs of ease,
Has hurled me to the ends of all the earth.
How bitterly I've cursed it, oh, the Painted Desert knows,
The wraithlike heights that hug the pallid plain,
The all-but-fluid silence, -- yet the longing grows and grows,
And I've got to glut the Wanderlust again.
Soldier, sailor, in what a plight I've been!
Tinker, tailor, oh what a sight I've seen!
And I'm hitting the trail in the morning, boys,
And you won't see my heels for dust;
For it's "all day" with you
When you answer the cue
Of the Wan-der-lust.

---

22 Oct 99 - 08:11 PM (#126987)
Subject: RE: Help: The birds were beating north again
From: Boyd [e-mail]

Hello Kat, thank you so much for your help. I'm hoping to find out more about this beautiful poem. And I like Robert Service's work very much.

---

22 Oct 99 - 08:50 PM (#126998)
Subject: RE: Help: The birds were beating north again
From: katlaughing

Ah, geez, like PeterT always says, "proffreed"! That should be "first" stanza and sorry for the couple of others; it's the fingers they have minds of their own!

---

22 Oct 99 - 11:57 PM (#127082)
Subject: RE: Help: The birds were beating north again
From: katlaughing

Boyd, I am going to start you a new thread with Wanderlust in the title. That should get some takers.**Big grin**

katlaughing

---

23 Oct 99 - 12:07 AM (#127093)
Subject: RE: Help: The birds were beating north again
From: katlaughing

Well, don't I feel the idjeet! I got mixed up between you, posting from TX, and another newbie who posted from TX about his friend losing all of their msuic books to a flood. You probably wondered what int he "h" I was tlaking about and very kindly didn't say a thing to embarrass me. Welcome, welcome, again! And, I did start a new thread on this.

kat

---

23 Oct 99 - 10:29 AM (#127144)
Subject: RE: Help: The birds were beating north again
From: Boyd [e-mail]

Thank you Kat for your continuing efforts to help me find the poem. With regard to the Music Books reference, at my age of 76 years old, I take such references as a completely normal course of events. I would like to say it was kindness on my part not to mention it; but truth be told it is just plain old fashioned senility: I had already forgotten what you said. :-)

---

23 Oct 99 - 10:44 AM (#127145)
Subject: RE: Help: The birds were beating north again
From: katlaughing

Ah, Boyd, I'll not believe it for a minute. My dad is 82 & 1/2 and is a great one for poetry and "entertaining the old folks" with playing & singing. I've come to give anyone, esp, anyone older, the beneift of the doubt, always. After all, he may have forgotten some, yet still remembers more in his little finger, than most of us younger folks, and I'll bet you do to.:-) kat

---

23 Oct 99 - 12:12 PM (#127171)
Subject: RE: Help: The birds were beating north again
From: Boyd [e-mail]

Thank you again Kat for your continuing support. You mentioned that your father likes poetry, so I would like for your father, and you, to take a look at my poetry web page. I call myself a poet, but the opinion isn't universal :-) http://www2.itexas.net/~wheelerb

---

04 May 10 - 12:05 PM (#2899845)
Subject: Lyr Add: WANDERLUST (Odell Shepard)
From: Jim Dixon

From A Lonely Flute by Odell Shepard (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1917), page 68:


WANDERLUST
(To Willard)
By Odell Shepard

The birds were beating north again with faint and starry cries
Along their ancient highway that spans the midnight skies,
And out across the rush of wings my heart went crying too,
Straight for the morning's windy walls and lakes of misted blue.

They gave me place among them, for well they understood
The magic wine of April working madness in my blood,
And we were kin in thought and dream as league by league together
We kept that pace of straining wings across the starry weather.

The dim blue tides of Fundy, green slopes of Labrador
Slid under us ... our course was set for earth's remotest shore;
But tingling through the ether and searching star by star
A lonely voice went crying that drew me down from far.

Farewell, farewell, my brothers! I see you far away
Go drifting down the sunset across the last green bay,
But I have found the haven of this lonely heart and wild —
My falconer has called me — I am prisoned by a child.

(Easter Day, 1916)

---