Edgar Lee Masters (1868–1950). Spoon River Anthology. 1916.

220. William Goode

TO all in the village I seemed, no doubt,

To go this way and that way, aimlessly.

But here by the river you can see at twilight

The soft-winged bats fly zig-zag here and there—

They must fly so to catch their food.

And if you have ever lost your way at night,

In the deep wood near Miller’s Ford,

And dodged this way and now that,

Wherever the light of the Milky Way shone through,

Trying to find the path,

You should understand I sought the way

With earnest zeal, and all my wanderings

Were wanderings in the quest.