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Home  »  Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century  »  Cicely Fox-Smith (1882–1954)

Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

By Wings of the Morning (1904). V. Journey’s End

Cicely Fox-Smith (1882–1954)

WHEN the long day’s tramp is over, when the journey’s done,

I shall dip down from some hill-top at the going down o’ the sun,

And turn in at the open door, and lay down staff and load,

And wash me clean of the heat o’ day, and white dust o’ the road.

There shall I hear the restless wind go wandering to and fro.

That sings the old wayfaring song—the tune that the stars know;

Soft shall I lie and well content, and I shall ask no more

Than just to drowse and watch the folk turn in at the open door.

To hail the folk I used to know, that trudged with me in the dust,

That warmed their hands at the same fire, and ate o’ the same crust,

To know them safe from the cold wind and the drenching rain,

Turn a little, and wake a little, and so to sleep again.