If you follow the track from Delannit
You will come to a fork in the way,
And the path to the right will unfold to your sight
All the glory of sand-dunes and granite,
Set out at the foot of a bay.
But if you are tired of the splendor
Of shimmering waters a-race,
Let your feet wander back to the fork in the track,
And along the left path that is slender
And rough, you will find Logan's place.
The fields are still harrowed and waiting
The wheat that will never be sown,
While last season's hay has long since turned to grey.
The ground-larks are building and mating
In grass that will never be mown.
In the background a little, rough, shanty,
Unfinished and most up to date,
Stands sad and alone in its plaster and stone,
And this, in his spare time, most scanty,
Young Logan was building for Kate.
Having just read the top verses over,
I'll admit they're not up to much.
I intended to shunt Logan off to the Front,
To be drowned in a troopship near Dover,
And end with a sad sort of touch.
And Kate was to stand at a sliprail
Each night, with a tear in her eye,
And gaze to the west with a sob in her breast;
Or convulsively clutch an old milk-pail,
And murmur: "Oh, how could you die!"
But it seems, after fresh recollection,
It ends in a much brighter way.
Logan's aunt, it appears, whom he'd not seen for years,
Pegged out, just to show her affection --
Left Logan a hundred a day.
First published in The Bulletin, 21 June 1917
