The Lost Path

Alone they walked - their fingers knit together,      And swaying listlessly as might a swing     Wherein Dan Cupid dangled in the weather      Of some sun-flooded afternoon of Spring.     Within the clover-fields the tickled cricket      Laughed lightly as they loitered down the lane,     And from the covert of the hazel-thicket      The squirrel peeped and laughed at them again.     The bumble-bee that tipped the lily-vases      Along the road-side in the shadows dim,     Went following the blossoms of their faces      As though their sweets must needs be shared with him.     Between the pasture bars the wondering cattle      Stared wistfully, and from their mellow bells     Shook out a welcoming whose dreamy rattle      Fell swooningly away in faint farewells.     And though at last the gloom of night fell o'er them      And folded all the landscape from their eyes,     They only know the dusky path before them      Was leading safely on to Paradise.