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Deceptaque non capiatur.
WHERE this narrow lane slips by, | |
| All the land’s breadth, over-glowed | |
| Under amplest arching sky, | |
| Seems a secret meet to keep | |
| For these hedged banks close and high, | 5 |
| Till the turn of the road. | |
| Then a curve of sudden sweep— | |
| Lone and green the country side, | |
| Like a cloak, with scarce a fold, | |
| And the white track’s dwindling thread, | 10 |
| Lies in basking beams dispread: | |
| You may look out far and wide | |
| From the turn of the road. | |
| There’s a gleam of rusted gold, | |
| And a blink of eave-stained wall, | 15 |
| Up the lane a rood or so, | |
| Where a thatched roof huddles low; | |
| And a day will seldom fall | |
| But its mistress, bent and old, | |
| Rime-frost hair and little red shawl, | 20 |
| Through her black-gapped doorway fares. | |
| Very frail and meagre and small, | |
| And the years’ unlifted load | |
| With a faltering foot she bears | |
| ’Twixt the tall banks to and fro; | 25 |
| But her steps will ever stay | |
| Ere the turn of the road— | |
| Never reach it; you might guess | |
| That they halt for feebleness, | |
| Till you hear her story told. | 30 |
| For she says: “The children all | |
| Are a weary while away. | |
| Years long since I watched them go— | |
| ’Twas when dawn came glimmering cold- | |
| Round the turn of the road. | 35 |
| And I’m lonesome left behind; | |
| Yet time passes, fast or slow, | |
| And they’re coming home some day; | |
| They’ll come back to me, they said: | |
| Just this morn that’s overhead | 40 |
| It might chance, for aught I know. | |
| “And that’s always in my mind, | |
| For I dream it in my sleep, | |
| And I think it when I wake, | |
| And when out of doors I creep | 45 |
| Towards the turn of the road, | |
| Then a step I hardly make | |
| But I’m saying all the while, | |
| Ere another minute’s gone | |
| I may see them there, all three, | 50 |
| Coming home, poor lads, to me, | |
| Round the turn of the road. | |
| “But a stone’s throw further on, | |
| If I’d creep to where it showed | |
| Like a riband stretched a mile, | 55 |
| And the longest look I’d take | |
| Saw naught stirring on its white, | |
| Sure my heart were fit to break. | |
| “So or ever I come in sight, | |
| Home I set my face again, | 60 |
| Lest I’d lose the thought that’s light | |
| Through the darksome day. And then | |
| If I find the house so still | |
| That my heart begins to ache, | |
| And a hundred harms forebode, | 65 |
| Ere my foot is o’er the sill, | |
| I can think I needn’t fret, | |
| If they’re maybe near me yet | |
| At the turn of the road.” | |
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