The silent woodlands bend above This ancient highway that they love, And seem to guard it jealous-wise From alien, unfriendly eyes. Along this road in centuries past The stage for Boston rattled fast, With Pilgrim folk outside and in, Austere with serious discipline. Here strode the friendly Indian band, The hunter with his gun in hand, The soldier hastening to join The patriot troops against Burgoyne, And hither from the north came down The Puritan with solemn frown. Deep-worn by all these years of toil The road has sunk into the soil, While moss and tangled briers hide The sharp-cut bank on either side. For now the ancient road is left Of all its olden fame bereft. Only a squirrel now and then Attempts this path of antique men, And flickering silent shadows hide The ways where ghosts may often glide. From busy highroad strangely near The automobile horns we hear, And all the rushing modern world Along that level stretch is hurled; But someway here within the wood It seems unutterably good; And, bathed in memories true and fair, The real is here, it is not there! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ON A FLOWER FROM THE FIELD OF GRUTLI by FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS TO DOCTOR EMPIRIC by BEN JONSON CORINNA TO TANAGRA, FROM ATHENS by WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR TO A CYCLAMEN by WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR THE CLERKS by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON EVENING by ISABELLA LOCKHART ALDERMAN |