THE LITTLE ROADS

THE LITTLE ROADS

THE great roads are all grown over

That seemed so firm and white.

The deep black forests have covered them.

How should I walk aright?

How should I thread these tangled mazes,

Or grope to that far off light?

I stumble round the thickets, and they turn me

Back to the thickets and the night.

Yet, sometimes, at a word, an elfin pass-word,

(O, thin, deep, sweet with beaded rain!)

There shines, through a mist of ragged-robins,

The old lost April-coloured lane,

That leads me from myself; for, at a whisper,

Where the strong limbs thrust in vain,

At a breath, if my heart help another heart,

The path shines out for me again.

A thin thread, a rambling lane for lovers

To the light of the world's one May,

Where the white dropping flakes may wet our faces

As we lift them to the bloom-bowed spray:

O Master, shall we ask Thee, then, for high-roads,

Or down upon our knees and pray

That Thou wilt ever lose us in Thy little lanes,

And lead us by a wandering way.