Page:Poems (Edward Thomas, 1917).djvu/36

 THE BRIDGE

LOB

hawthorn-time in Wiltshire travelling

In search of something chance would never bring,

An old man's face, by life and weather cut

And coloured,—rough, brown, sweet as any nut,—

A land face, sea-blue-eyed,—hung in my mind

When I had left him many a mile behind.

All he said was: "Nobody can't stop 'ee. It's

A footpath, right enough. You see those bits

Of mounds—that's where they opened up the barrows

Sixty years since, while I was scaring sparrows. 30