Old Inn

<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN> <h2><SPAN name="THE_OLD_INN" id="THE_OLD_INN"></SPAN>THE OLD INN.</h2> <h4>1.</h4> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Red-winding from the sleepy town,<br/></span> <span class="i2">One takes the lone, forgotten lane<br/></span> <span class="i0">Straight through the hills. A brush-bird brown<br/></span> <span class="i2">Bubbles in thorn-flowers sweet with rain;<br/></span> <span class="i2">Light shivers sink the gleaming grain;<br/></span> <span class="i0">The cautious drip of higher leaves<br/></span> <span class="i2">The lower dips that drip again.&mdash;<br/></span> <span class="i0">Above the tangled tops it heaves<br/></span> <span class="i0">Its gables and its haunted eaves.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <h4>2.</h4></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">One creeper, gnarled to bloomlessness,<br/></span> <span class="i2">O'er-forests all its eastern wall;<br/></span> <span class="i0">The sighing cedars rake and press<br/></span> <span class="i2">Dark boughs along the panes they sprawl;<br/></span> <span class="i2">While, where the sun beats, breaks a drawl<br/></span><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</SPAN></span> <span class="i0">Of hiving wasps; one bushy bee,<br/></span> <span class="i2">Gold-dusty, hurls along the hall<br/></span> <span class="i0">To hum into a crack.&mdash;To me<br/></span> <span class="i0">The shadows seem too scared to flee.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <h4>3.<br/></h4></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Of ragged chimneys martins make<br/></span> <span class="i2">Huge pipes of music; twittering here<br/></span> <span class="i0">Build, breed, and roost.&mdash;My footfalls wake<br/></span> <span class="i2">Strange stealing echoes, till I fear<br/></span> <span class="i2">I'll meet my pale self coming near;<br/></span> <span class="i0">My phantom face as in a glass;<br/></span> <span class="i2">Or one men murdered, buried&mdash;where?<br/></span> <span class="i0">Dim in gray, stealthy glimmer, pass<br/></span> <span class="i0">With lips that seem to moan "Alas."<br/></span></div> </div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />