Poem by Joyce Kilmer

Roofs

(For Amelia Josephine Burr)

The road is wide and the stars are out
and the breath of the night is sweet,
And this is the time when wanderlust should seize upon my feet.
But I’m glad to turn from the open road and the starlight on my 
face,
And to leave the splendour of out-of-doors for a human dwelling 
place.
I never have seen a vagabond who really liked to 
roam
All up and down the streets of the world and not to have a home:
The tramp who slept in your barn last night and left at break of 
day
Will wander only until he finds another place to stay.
A gypsy-man will sleep in his cart with canvas 
overhead;
Or else he’ll go into his tent when it is time for bed.
He’ll sit on the grass and take his ease so long as the sun is high,
But when it is dark he wants a roof to keep away the sky.
If you call a gypsy a vagabond, I think you do 
him wrong,
For he never goes a-travelling but he takes his home along.
And the only reason a road is good, as every wanderer knows,
Is just because of the homes, the homes, the homes to which it goes.
They say that life is a highway and its milestones 
are the years,
And now and then there’s a toll-gate where you buy your way with 
tears.
It’s a rough road and a steep road and it stretches broad and far,
But at last it leads to a golden Town where golden Houses are.

1. The Cathedral of Rheims
2. To Certain Poets
3. Thanksgiving
4. Multiplication
5. Houses

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