Classic Poem

Friend , you are grieved that I should go
Unhoused, unsheltered, gaunt and free,
My cloak for armor — for my tent
The roadside tree;

And I — I know not how you bear
A roof betwixt you and the blue.
Brother, the creed would stifle me
That shelters you.

Yet, that same light that floods at dawn
Your cloistered room, your cryptic stair,
Wakes me, too — sleeping by the hedge —
To morning prayer!