The Road extended o'er a heath

The road extended o'er a heath
Weary and bleak: no cottager had there
Won from the waste a rood of ground, no hearth
Of Traveller's half-way house with its turf smoke
Scented the air through which the plover wings
His solitary flight. The sun was sunk,
And, fresh-indented, the white road proclaimed
The self-provided waggoner gone by.
Me from the public way the common hope
Of shorter path seduced, and led me on
Where smooth-green sheep-tracks thridded the sharp furze
And kept the choice suspended, having chosen.
The time exacted haste and steps secure
From such perplexity, so to regain
The road now more than a long mile remote,
My course I slanted, when at once winds rose
And from the rainy east a bellying cloud
Met the first star and hurried on the night.
Now fast against my cheek and whistling ears
My loose wet hair and tattered bonnet flapped
With thought-perplexing noise, that seemed to make
The universal darkness that ensued
More dark and desolate. Though I had seen
Worse storm, no stranger to such nights as these,
Yet had I fears from which a life like mine
Might long have rested, and remember well
That as I floundered on, disheartened sore
With the rough element and pelting shower,
I saw safe-sheltered by the viewless furze
The tiny glow-worm, lowliest child of earth,
From his green lodge with undiminished light
Shine through the rain, and, strange comparison
Of Envy linked with pity, touched my heart,
And such reproach of heavenly ordonnance
As shall not need forgiveness. . . .
. . . The cotters' ponies pastured near
Mute as the ground, nor other living thing
Appeared through all the waste; only the geese
Were heard to send from far a dreary cry.
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