Cracked his laughter sounded, harsh as woe,
As the croaking, thinned, of a crow:
At his back hung, pinned, a wallet old,
Bulged with roots and simples caked with mould:
On the barren hillside in the wind.
Roots of twisted twin-leaf; sassafras;
Bloodroot, tightly whipped round with grass;
Adder’s-tongue; and, tipped brown and black,
Yellowroot and snakeroot filled his pack,
On the barren hillside, winter-stripped.
There is nothing sadder than old age;
Nothing saddens more than that stage
When, forlornly poor, bent with toil,
One must starve or wring life from the soil,
From the barren hillside, wild and hoar.
Down the barren hillside slow he went,
Cursing at the cold, bowed and bent;
With his bag of mold, herbs and roots,
In his clay-stained garments, clay-caked boots,
Down the barren hillside, poor and old.
THE SOLITARY
Upon the mossed rock by the spring
She sits, forgetful of her pail,
Lost in remote remembering
Of that which may no more avail.
Her thin, pale hair is dimly dressed
Above a brow lined deep with care,
The color of a leaf long pressed,
A faded leaf that once was fair.
You may not know her from the stone
So still she sits who does not stir,
Thinking of this one thing alone—
The love that never came to her.