Heart of New England

Chapter 14: THE FRIGHTENED PATH

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About This Book

A lyric collection that moves through New England’s seasons, landscapes, and local history, blending pastoral description with folklore, legend, and occasional patriotic and religious reflections. Poems evoke shorelines, orchards, pine woods, and village life while honoring Pilgrim ancestry and the fortitude of pioneer women; other pieces imagine fairies, haunted houses, pirate lore, and convent gardens. Varied forms include children’s verses, contemplative nature lyrics, and occasional odes, united by a regionally rooted voice that balances celebration of place with quiet moral and communal meditation.

THE FRIGHTENED PATH

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!”