Page:Main Street and other poems, Kilmer, 1917.djvu/23

MAIN STREET AND OTHER POEMS

ROOFS (continued) 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. [ 17 ]