The Roadway

When the footbridge washes away,
And the lights along the bank
Accost each other no longer,
But the wild grass grows up rank,
And no one comes to stand
Where neighbor and neighbor stood,
And each house is drawn in to itself
And shuttered against the road,

Under each separate roof
The familiar life goes on:
The hearth is swept up at night,
The table laid in the dawn,
And man and woman and child
Eat their accustomed meal,
Give thanks and turn to their day
As if by an act of will.

Nowhere is evil spoken,
Though something deep in the heart
Refuses to mend the bridge
And can never make a start
Along the abandoned path
To the house at left or at right,
Where neighbor and neighbor’s children
Awake to the same daylight.

Good men grown long accustomed
To inflexible ways of mind—
Which of them could say clearly
What first drove kind from kind?
Courteous to any stranger,
Forbearing with wife and child—
Yet along the common roadway
The wild grass still grows wild.