Then by the cedared way that leads,
Through burr and bramble-thickets,
Unto a burial-ground of weeds
Fenced in with broken pickets.
Then slowly, slowly down the vale,
And wearily through the rushes,
Where sunlight of the noon is pale,
Its shadowy water hushes.
For oft her young face smiled upon
Its deeps here, willow-shaded;
And oft with bare feet in the sun
Its shallows there she waded.
No more beneath the twinkling leaves
Shall stand the farmer’s daughter!—
softly past the cottage eaves,
O memory-haunted water!
No more shall bend her laughing face
Above it where the rose is!—
Sigh softly past the burial-place
Where all her youth reposes.
HOME
Among the fields the camomile
Seems blown mist in the lightning’s glare:
Cool, rainy odors drench the air;
Night speaks above; the angry smile
Of storm within her stare.
The way that I shall take to-night
Is through the wood whose branches fill
The road with double darkness, till,
Between the boughs, a window’s light
Shines out upon the hill.
The fence; and then the path that goes
Around a trailer-tangled rock,
Through puckered pink and hollyhock,
Unto a latch-gate’s unkempt rose,
And door whereat I knock.