55680: The Sign Post

<p dir="ltr"> The dim sea glints chill. The white sun is shy,<br> And the skeleton weeds and the never-dry,<br> Rough, long grasses keep white with frost<br> At the hilltop by the finger-post;<br> The smoke of the traveller's-joy is puffed<br> Over hawthorn berry and hazel tuft.<br> I read the sign. Which way shall I go?<br> A voice says: You would not have doubted so<br> At twenty. Another voice gentle with scorn<br> Says: At twenty you wished you had never been born.<br> One hazel lost a leaf of gold<br> From a tuft at the tip, when the first voice told<br> The other he wished to know what 'twould be<br> To be sixty by this same post. 'You shall see,'<br> He laughed---and I had to join his laughter---<br> 'You shall see; but either before or after,<br> Whatever happens, it must befall,<br> A mouthful of earth to remedy all<br> Regrets and wishes shall freely be given;<br> And if there be a flaw in that heaven<br> 'Twill be freedom to wish, and your wish may be<br> To be here or anywhere talking to me,<br> No matter what the weather, on earth,<br> At any age between death and birth,---<br> To see what day or night can be,<br> The sun and the frost, the land and the sea,<br> Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring,---<br> With a poor man of any sort, down to a king,<br> Standing upright out in the air<br> Wondering where he shall journey, O where?'<br></p>