Charles Tomlinson
. . . Or Traveller's Joy
I return late
on a wintry road: the beam
has suddenly lit
flowers of frost, or so they seem:
Traveller’s joy! the recognition
flares as soon, almost,
as the headlights quit
those ghosts of petals:
A time returns, when men
fronting the winter starkness
were travellers travailing
against hail, mud, dark:
Then, whoever it was,
much road behind him,
coming, perhaps, at dawn
with little to remind him
He was cared for, kinned,
saw from the road
the hedgerow loaded
and thought it rimed:
And so it was: the name
he drew from that sudden brightness
came as if his joy
were nature’s, too:
And the sweet illusion
persists with the name
into present night,
under the travelling beam.
Page(s) 17-18
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