William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. (1878–1962). Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1920.

Departure

IT’S little I care what path I take,

And where it leads it’s little! care,

But out of this house, lest my heart break,

I must go, and off somewhere!

It’s little! know what’s in my heart,

What’s in my mind it’s little! know,

But there’s that in me must up and start,

And it’s little I care where my feet go!

I wish I could walk for a day and a night

And find me at dawn in a desolate place,

With never the rut of a road in sight,

Or the roof of a house, or the eyes of a face.

I wish I could walk till my blood should spout,

And drop me, never to stir again,

On a shore that is wide, for the tide is out,

And the weedy rocks are bare to the rain.

But dump or dock, where the path I take

Brings up, it’s little enough I care,

And it’s little I’d mind the fuss they’ll make,

Huddled dead in a ditch somewhere.

“Is something the matter, dear,” she said,

“That you sit at your work so silently?”

“No, mother, no—’twas a knot in my thread.

There goes the kettle—I’ll make the tea.”

Ainslee’s Magazine