Careful Words

wandering (n.)

wandering (adj.)

  As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come.

Old Testament: Proverbs xxvi. 2.

In discourse more sweet;

For eloquence the soul, song charms the sense.

Others apart sat on a hill retir'd,

In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high

Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,

Fix'd fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute;

And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 555.

I walk unseen

On the dry smooth-shaven green,

To behold the wandering moon

Riding near her highest noon,

Like one that had been led astray

Through the heav'n's wide pathless way;

And oft, as if her head she bow'd,

Stooping through a fleecy cloud.

John Milton (1608-1674): Il Penseroso. Line 65.

Breathes there the man with soul so dead

Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land!

Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd

As home his footsteps he hath turn'd

From wandering on a foreign strand?

If such there breathe, go, mark him well!

For him no minstrel raptures swell;

High though his titles, proud his name,

Boundless his wealth as wish can claim,—

Despite those titles, power, and pelf,

The wretch, concentred all in self,

Living, shall forfeit fair renown,

And, doubly dying, shall go down

To the vile dust from whence he sprung,

Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto vi. Stanza 1.

Where music dwells

Lingering and wandering on as loth to die,

Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof

That they were born for immortality.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Ecclesiastical Sonnets. Part iii. xliii. Inside of King's Chapel, Cambridge.

The nodding horror of whose shady brows

Threats the forlorn and wandering passenger.

John Milton (1608-1674): Comus. Line 38.

Some natural tears they dropp'd, but wip'd them soon;

The world was all before them, where to choose

Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.

They hand in hand, with wand'ring steps and slow,

Through Eden took their solitary way.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book xii. Line 645.

O Cuckoo! shall I call thee bird,

Or but a wandering voice?

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): To the Cuckoo.