Classic Poem

The cock's clear voice into the clearer air
Where westward far I roam,1
Mounts with a thrill of hope,
Falls with a sigh of home.

A rural sentry, he from farm and field
The coming morn descries,
And, mankind's bugler, wakes
The camp of enterprise.

He sings the morn upon the westward hills
Strange and remote and wild;
He sings it in the land
Where once I was a child.

He brings to me dear voices of the past
The old land and the years:
My father calls for me,
My weeping spirit hears.

Fife, fife, into the golden air, O bird,
And sing the morning in;
For the old days are past

And newer days begin.1 This poem was written on the train as Stevenson crossed America to join Mrs. Osbourne whom he was soon to marry.