Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.
By Ghost-Bereft (1901). V. ExpectationJane Barlow (18571917)
F
Till where, down labyrinthine lanes enfolden,
The grey, green-mantled church stood, half withholden
From passing eyes by elms full-fledged for shedding
Midsummer shade, noon-shrunken, softly spreading
O’er swarded path a dappled pavement, golden
And beryl-flecked, to a door, whose dusk-arch olden
Let glimpse in hesitant gleams, the sill’s gloom dreading.
A knot of children, snowy-bibbed, blue-skirted,
Hung round the gate, from devious ways diverted;
Shawled crone’s slow halt and girl’s light foot one goal
Had found thereby. Grand weather for whose wedding?
Methought: and straight a daw from ivied steading
Swooped startled, as a bell began to—toll.