On the road to nowhere <br />What wild oats did you sow <br />When you left your father's house <br />With your cheeks aglow? <br />Eyes so strained and eager <br />To see what you might see? <br />Were you thief or were you fool <br />Or most nobly free? <br /> <br />Were the tramp-days knightly, <br />True sowing of wild seed? <br />Did you dare to make the songs <br />Vanquished workmen need? <br />Did you waste much money <br />To deck a leper's feast? <br />Love the truth, defy the crowd <br />Scandalize the priest? <br />On the road to nowhere <br />What wild oats did you sow? <br />Stupids find the nowhere-road <br />Dusty, grim and slow. <br /> <br />Ere their sowing's ended <br />They turn them on their track, <br />Look at the caitiff craven wights <br />Repentant, hurrying back! <br />Grown ashamed of nowhere, <br />Of rags endured for years, <br />Lust for velvet in their hearts, <br />Pierced with Mammon's spears, <br />All but a few fanatics <br />Give up their darling goal, <br />Seek to be as others are, <br />Stultify the soul. <br />Reapings now confront them, <br />Glut them, or destroy, <br />Curious seeds, grain or weeds <br />Sown with awful joy. <br />Hurried is their harvest, <br />They make soft peace with men. <br />Pilgrims pass. They care not, <br />Will not tramp again. <br /> <br />O nowhere, golden nowhere! <br />Sages and fools go on <br />To your chaotic ocean, <br />To your tremendous dawn. <br />Far in your fair dream-haven, <br />Is nothing or is all... <br />They press on, singing, sowing <br />Wild deeds without recall!<br /><br />Vachel Lindsay<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-the-road-to-nowhere/
