William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. (1878–1962). Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1920.
Departure
I
And where it leads it’s little! care,
But out of this house, lest my heart break,
I must go, and off somewhere!
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!
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.
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.
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.
“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.”