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Oh, my ways are strange ways and new ways and old ways, And deep ways and steep ways and high ways and low; I’m at home and at ease on a track that I know not, And restless and lost on a road that I know.

Andthey heard the tent-poles clatter,

And the fly in twain was torn—

’Twas the soiled rag of a tatter

Of the tent where I was born.

Does it matter? Which is stranger—

Brick or stone or calico?—

There was one born in a manger

Nineteen hundred years ago?

And my beds were camp beds and tramp beds and damp beds,

And my beds were dry beds on drought-stricken ground,

Hard beds and soft beds, and wide beds and narrow—

For my beds were strange beds the wide world round.

And the old hag seemed to ponder

With her grey head nodding slow—

“He will dream, and he will wander

Where but few would think to go.

He will flee the haunts of tailors,

He will cross the ocean wide,

For his fathers, they were sailors—

All on his good father’s side.”

I rest not, ’tis best not, the world is a wide one—

And, caged for a moment, I pace to and fro;

I see things and dree things and plan while I’m sleeping,

I wander for ever and dream as I go.

And the old hag she was troubled

As she bent above the bed;

“He will dream things and he’ll see things

To come true when he is dead.

He will see things all too plainly,

And his fellows will deride,

For his mothers they were gipsies—

All on his good mother’s side.”

And my dreams are strange dreams, are day dreams, are grey dreams,

And my dreams are wild dreams, and old dreams and new;

They haunt me and daunt me with fears of the morrow—

My brothers they doubt me—but my dreams come true.