Beside the Road

WHO has not walked with loneliness,And leaned upon the arm of grief,Along the road of Heart’s Distress,Mourning that joy is brief?

The paths appointed us to takeAre not the ways that we would choose;The guide post reading: “Duty’s Sake,”Is one we cannot lose.

But they, who kneel awhile and pray,Or muse with Nature upon God,May find, beside the lonely way,The faery goldenrod.

Of hope, whose light makes bright the road,And beautifies the lonely hours,And turns the sorrow of our loadTo thoughts, like shining flowers.

[First published in the Pleiades Club Year Book (New York, 1912), 129]