The Little Roads

The great roads are all grown over         That seemed so firm and white.     The deep black forests have covered them.         How should I walk aright?     How should I thread these tangled mazes,         Or grope to that far off light?     I stumble round the thickets, and they turn me         Back to the thickets and the night.     Yet, sometimes, at a word, an elfin pass-word,         (O, thin, deep, sweet with beaded rain!)     There shines, through a mist of ragged-robins,         The old lost April-coloured lane,     That leads me from myself; for, at a whisper,         Where the strong limbs thrust in vain,     At a breath, if my heart help another heart,         The path shines out for me again.     A thin thread, a rambling lane for lovers         To the light of the world's one May,     Where the white dropping flakes may wet our faces         As we lift them to the bloom-bowed spray:     O Master, shall we ask Thee, then, for high-roads,         Or down upon our knees and pray     That Thou wilt ever lose us in Thy little lanes,         And lead us by a wandering way.