Jessie B. Rittenhouse, ed. (1869–1948). The Second Book of Modern Verse. 1922.
Path Flower
A
A lark o’er Golder’s lane,
As I the April pathway trod
Bound west for Willesden.
And taller stood to hear,
And every leaf on every twig
Was like a little ear.
To catch the rippling rain,—
So still, a hare kept at my side
His tussock of disdain,—
A soft pit-pat surprise,
And looking round my eyes fell deep
Into sweet other eyes;
So clear and trustful brown,
Without a bubble warning you
That here’s a place to drown.
Had told of more than one.
She answered like a dreaming Muse,
“I came from Islington.”
Then seemed to lift a wing,
And words fell soft as willow-buds,
“I came to find the Spring.”
In ways so sweet to roam,
As it with honey bees had played
And could no more go home.
I heard the huckster’s bawl,
I stifled with the thickened air
Of bickering mart and stall.
Her feet had set her free.
Her rags, that decency defied,
Seemed new with liberty.
The trail of hungering
That for an hour she had forgot
In wonder of the Spring.
It seemed a sin to chat.
(A tea-shop snuggled off the road;
Why did I think of that?)
But she was passing on,
And I but muddled, “You’ll accept
A penny for a bun?”
Of rose climbed for it must;
A wilding lost till safe it lay
Hid by her curls of rust;
With pride that bore no name;
So old it was she knew not whence
It sudden woke and came;
Was startled, sadder thought
That I should give her back the fear
Of life she had forgot.
Putting God’s hand aside,
Till for the want of sun and shade
His little children died;
With Spring went up and down,
Must greet a soul that ached for her
With “penny for a bun!”
Whose sin upon him cries,
I watched the flowers leave her face,
The song go from her eyes.
And of her charity
A hand of grace put softly out
And took the coin from me.
A lark o’er Golder’s lane;
But I, alone, still glooming stood,
And April plucked in vain;
And sudden music played:
Out of such sacred thirst as hers
The world shall be remade.
As might have smiled the Spring,
And humble as a wondering child
I watched her vanishing.