Frightened Path - Brown

The Frightened Path

circa 1920
by Abbie Farwell Brown (1871-1927)

The wood grew very quiet
As the road made a sudden turn;
Then a wavering, furtive path crept out
From the tangled briar and fern.

“Where does it lead?” I asked the child;
She shivered and shook her head.
“It doesn’t lead to any place,
It is running away!” she said.

“It is running away on tiptoe
Through the untrodden grass,
To join the cheerful highroad,
Where real, live people pass.

“It runs from a heap of ruins
Where a home stood in old days;
But nothing living goes there now,
And—Nothing Living stays!”

From Heart of New England, 1920