Select Poetry.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3506, 20 March 1880, Page 1

Select Poetry.

THE CBOOKED FOOTPATH.

Ah/here it is ! tho sliding rail That marks the old rememberedjspot. The gap that struck our schoolboy'trail, Tho crooked path across the lot. It left the road by school and church, A pencilled shadow, nothing more, That parted from the silver birch, And ended at the farm-house door. No line or compass traced its plan, With frequent bends to left and'right, In aimless, wayward curves it ran, But always kept the porch in sight. The gabled porch with woodbine green, The broken millstone at the-sill, — Though many a rood might stretch between, The truant child could see them still. No rocks across the pathway lio, No fallen .trunk is o'er it thrown, " —r And yet it~Winds, we know not why, . And turns as if from tree or stone. Perhaps some lover trod thejway, With shaking knees and leaping heart, And so it often runs astray With sinuous sweep.or^suddonjstart. Or one perchance, -with clouded brain, From some unholy banquet reeled, And still, our devious steps maintain . This track across the trodden field. Nay, deem not thus—no earthborn will Could ever tread a faultless line Our truest steps are human stillTo walk unswerving were divine! Truants from love, we dream of wrath; Oh, rather let us trust the more! • . Through all the windings of the path, We still can see our Father's door! O.'WV'Holmes.