I want to be lighting my pipe on deck, <br />With my baggage safe below— <br />I want to be free of the crowded quay, <br />While the steamer’s swinging slow. <br />I want to be free of treachery, <br />And of sordid joys and griefs— <br />To be out of sight of the faces white, <br />And the waving of handkerchiefs. <br />I want to be making my ship-board friends, <br />I want to be free of the past— <br />I want to be laughing with kindred souls, <br />While the Heads are opening fast. <br />I want to be sailing far to-day, <br />On the tracks where the rovers go, <br />To feel the heave of the deck, and draw <br />The breath that the rovers know.<br /><br />Henry Lawson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/outside-11/
