Page:Enoch Arden, etc - Tennyson - 1864.djvu/53
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ENOCH ARDEN.
37
But homeward—home—what home? had he a home?His home, he walk’d. Bright was that afternoon,Sunny but chill; till drawn thro’ either chasm,Where either haven open’d on the deeps,Roll’d a sea-haze and whelm’d the world in gray;Cut off the length of highway on before,And left but narrow breadth to left and rightOf wither’d holt or tilth or pasturage.On the nigh-naked tree the robin pipedDisconsolate, and thro’ the dripping hazeThe dead weight of the dead leaf bore it down:Thicker the drizzle grew, deeper the gloom;Last, as it seem’d, a great mist-blotted lightFlared on him, and he came upon the place.
Then down the long street having slowly stolen,His heart foreshadowing all calamity,His eyes upon the stones, he reach’d the homeWhere Annie lived and loved him, and his babesIn those far-off seven happy years were born;