Sometimes I step from greenwood paths

Into a desert place

Where the parched earth cries thirstily

To unresponsive space.

There falls a sudden lull in song of birds;

A wave of heat that blinds my eyes

And dulls my ears

To all but its own beat.

My feet grow weary

And my heart is dry as a dead tree;

The dust of many arid years

Sweeps up and stifles me.

But after I have trod it all in courage;

And again reached

The green coolness of a wood

Blessed with fresh dew and rain—

I look back on that desert place,

Softened by memory's haze,

And know that all this loveliness I reached

Through those dry ways!