Winifred Webb

To My Grandmother

THEY said it was too hard for you, who were alone and old,

To live there any longer. And so the farm was sold.

And you, to whom the wind had blown across the yellow wheat,

Made no complaint against the life upon the narrow street;

But many times you stole away all by yourself to stand,

Here by the upper window, where the wide and lovely land

Sweeps to the farmhouse gleaming white upon the wooded hill,

Just looking off with yearning eyes, quite patient, very still.

Ah, nevermore for you the herd should wind along the lane,

The dogs come barking o’er the snow, the reapers toss the grain!