The Wanderer
The Wanderer - meaning Summary
Longing for a Safe Return
The poem portrays a man seized by an unnamed doom who becomes a perpetual wanderer, cut off from home and familiar voices. He moves through hostile landscapes and seas, sleeps dreaming of domestic warmth, and wakes to alien places and people. The voice alternates observation and urgent prayer, asking protection for the man and his anxious house and pleading for a certain, hopeful return. The tone mixes resignation, vulnerability, and yearning for reconnection.
Read Complete AnalysesDoom is dark and deeper than any sea-dingle. Upon what man it fall In spring, day-wishing flowers appearing, Avalanche sliding, white snow from rock-face, That he should leave his house, No cloud-soft hand can hold him, restraint by women; But ever that man goes Through place-keepers, through forest trees, A stranger to strangers over undried sea, Houses for fishes, suffocating water, Or lonely on fell as chat, By pot-holed becks A bird stone-haunting, an unquiet bird. There head falls forward, fatigued at evening, And dreams of home, Waving from window, spread of welcome, Kissing of wife under single sheet; But waking sees Bird-flocks nameless to him, through doorway voices Of new men making another love. Save him from hostile capture, From sudden tiger's leap at corner; Protect his house, His anxious house where days are counted From thunderbolt protect, From gradual ruin spreading like a stain; Converting number from vague to certain, Bring joy, bring day of his returning, Lucky with day approaching, with leaning dawn.
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