THE LOST PATH

Alone they walked — their fingers knit together,

And swaying listlessly as might a swing

Wherein Dan Cupid dangled in the weather

Of some sun-flooded afternoon of Spring.

Within the clover-fields the tickled cricket

Laughed lightly as they loitered down the lane,

And from the covert of the hazel-thicket

The squirrel peeped and laughed at them again.

The bumble-bee that tipped the lily-vases

Along the road-side in the shadows dim,

Went following the blossoms of their faces

As though their sweets must needs be shared with him.

Between the pasture bars the wondering cattle

Stared wistfully, and from their mellow bells

Shook out a welcoming whose dreamy rattle

Fell swooningly away in faint farewells.

And though at last the gloom of night fell o'er them

And folded all the landscape from their eyes,

They only knew the dusky path before them

Was leading safely on to Paradise.