The Path

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

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