The Lost Path

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Alone they walked--their fingers knit together,
  And swaying listlessly as might a swing
  Wherein Dan Cupid dangled in the weather
  Of some sun-flooded afternoon of Spring.

  Within the clover-fields the tickled cricket
  Laughed lightly as they loitered down the lane,
  And from the covert of the hazel-thicket
  The squirrel peeped and laughed at them again.

  The bumble-bee that tipped the lily-vases
  Along the road-side in the shadows dim,
  Went following the blossoms of their faces
  As though their sweets must needs be shared with him.

  Between the pasture bars the wondering cattle
  Stared wistfully, and from their mellow bells
  Shook out a welcoming whose dreamy rattle
  Fell swooningly away in faint farewells.

  And though at last the gloom of night fell o'er them,
  And folded all the landscape from their eyes,
  They only know the dusky path before them
  Was leading safely on to Paradise.

© James Whitcomb Riley