A Boy's Will

Book Excerpt: ... So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze, Were not, as 'twere, the merest mask of gloom, But stretched away unto the edge of doom. I should not be withheld but that some dayInto their vastness I should steal away, Fearless of ever finding open land, Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand. I do not see why I should e'er turn back, Or those should not set forth upon my trackTo overtake me, who should miss me hereAnd long to know if still I held them dear. They would not find me changed from him they knew--Only more sure of all I thought was true. Ghost HouseI DWELL in a lonely house I knowThat vanished many a summer ago, And left no trace but the cellar walls, And a cellar in which the daylight falls, And the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow. O'er ruined fences the grape-vines shieldThe woods come back to the mowing fi