55739: The Path

<p dir="ltr"> Running along a bank, a parapet<br> That saves from the precipitous wood below<br> The level road, there is a path. It serves<br> Children for looking down the long smooth steep,<br> Between the legs of beech and yew, to where<br> A fallen tree checks the sight: while men and women<br> Content themselves with the road and what they see<br> Over the bank, and what the children tell.<br> The path, winding like silver, trickles on,<br> Bordered and even invaded by thinnest moss<br> That tries to cover roots and crumbling chalk<br> With gold, olive, and emerald, but in vain.<br> The children wear it. They have flattened the bank<br> On top, and silvered it between the moss<br> With the current of their feet, year after year.<br> But the road is houseless, and leads not to school.<br> To see a child is rare there, and the eye<br> Has but the road, the wood that overhangs<br> And underyawns it, and the path that looks<br> As if it led on to some legendary<br> Or fancied place where men have wished to go<br> And stay; till, sudden, it ends where the wood ends.<br></p>