Page 26 - Poetry-Country

The Old Country Road

Where did it come from, and where did it go?
That was the question that puzzled us so
As we waded the dust of the highway that flowed
By the farm, like a river—the old country road.
We stood with our hair sticking up thro’ the crown
Of our hats, as the people went up and went down,
And we wished in our hearts, as our eyes fairly glowed,
We could find where it came from—the old country road.
We remember the peddler who came with his pack
Adown the old highway, and never went back;
And we wondered what things he had seen as he strode
From some fabulous place up the old country road.

We remember the stage-driver’s look of delight
And the crack of his whip as he whirled into sight,
And we thought we could read in each glance he bestowed
A tale of strange life up the old country road.

The movers came by like a ship in full sail,
With a rudder behind, in the shape of a pail—
With a rollicking crew, and a cow that was towed
By a rope on her horns, down the old country road.
And the gypsies—how well we remember the week
They camped by the old covered bridge, on the creek—
How the neighbors quit work, and the crops were unhoed,
Till the wagons drove off down the old country road.
Oh, the top of the hill was the rim of the world,
And the dust of the summer that over it curled
Was the curtain that hid from our sight the abode
Of the fairies that lived up the old country road.
The old country road! I can see it still flow
Down the hill of my dreams, as it did long ago,
And I wish even now I could lay off my load,
And rest by the side of that old country road.

— James Newton Matthews (from a Victorian Scrap Album)

~ 24 ~