William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. (1878–1962). Anthology of Massachusetts Poets. 1922.

Country Road

I CAN’T forget a gaunt grey barn

Like a face without an eye

That kept recurring by field and tarn

Under a Cape Cod sky.

I can’t forget a woman’s hand,

Roughened and scarred by toil

That beckoned clear-eyed children tanned

By sun and wind and soil.

Beauty and hardship, bent and bound

Under the selfsame yoke:

Babies with bare knees plump and round

And stooping women folk.