It blunders off through ways obscure The old woods road I used to tread, Until its columned walls immure The sunbeams dripping overhead. Through scented gloom it seems to wind O’er fallen branches mossy green, And leaving all the world behind Gropes blindly toward a world unseen. The ancient wheel ruts disappear With pine and scrub oak overgrown, No creaking wain for many a year Has trailed its coverts wild and lone. “I wonder where that old road goes?” I hear some blithe young voices say And I might tell them if I chose “Back to the land of yesterday.” THE POVERTY WEED O the poverty weed is so shabby and poor That she seems to disfigure the land, The russet clad waif of the desolate moor She buries her face in the sand. Her threadbare old mantle all faded and frayed What beauty can ever adorn? As she cowers in the background this shy desert maid So lowly, despised and forlorn. But over that moorland in splashes of gold Like sunbeams enriching the gloom, What visions of loveliness seem to unfold When the poverty weed is in bloom! Aglow are those hillsides once barren and lone And golden those patches of green, When this poor floral outcast comes into her own And the blossoms all bow to their queen. THE SWEEP OF THE TIDES Out of the fathomless ocean Shaking the earth with their strides, Chaos resurgent in motion, Battle the foam bearded tides. Titans stupendous, upheaving, Flouting the roaring Monsoon, Hoarse with the joy of achieving Freedom to reach for the moon. Titans whose dungeons are riven Sped on their turbulent path, Not by Poseidon driven Nor by grim Eolus’ wrath, Clamorous, never delaying, Scouring the outermost dune, Sullen but ever obeying That mocking enchantress - the moon. Fundy is choked with their foaming, Fiercely they snarl ’round the Horn, Glinting like steel in the gloaming, Patined with gold at morn; White with the ice of the Behring, Green with sargassum strewn Wolves of the deep, never nearing, But ever pursuing the moon. Round and around and forever Dizzily circling the globe; Torn by impassioned endeavor Clutching, to touch but her robe; Wraithlike that robe, but enduring, Trailing her silvery lune, Woven of moonbeams alluring, Tracing the path to the moon. Formless, uncouth, terrifying, Goading the indolent seas; Breathing out clouds with their sighing, Draining the deep of its lees, Mountainous troughing and cresting, Then calm as a coral lagoon, Limitless yearning and questing Madness bewitched by the moon.