C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Louise Betts Edwards
The Highway
T
A naked line across the down
Worn by a hundred hurrying feet,
The tide of life along it flows,
And busy commerce comes and goes.
Where once the grass grew green and sweet
The world’s fierce pulses beat.
The passageway of great emprise!
Yet from its dust what voices cry,—
Voices of soft green growing things
Trampled and torn from earth which clings
Too closely, unperceiving why
Its darling bairns must die.
My heart’s a highway, trodden down
By many a traveler of renown,—
Grave Thought and burden-bearing Deeds.
And strong Achievement’s envoy fares,
With laughing Joys and crowding Cares,
Along the road that worldward leads—
Once rank with foolish weeds.
Yet sometimes breathes a low “Alas!”
The tender springing things that grew—
The nursling hopes their feet destroyed,
Sweet ignorant dreams that youth enjoyed
That blossomed there the long year through—
Would I could have them too!