On the Wide Heath by Edna St. Vincent Millay

On the wide heath at evening overtaken, / When the fast-reddening sun

Drops, and against the sky the looming bracken

/ Waves, and the day is done,

Though no unfriendly nostril snuifs his bone, / Though English wolves be dead,

The fox abroad on errands of his own, / The adder gone to bed,

The weary traveler from his aching hip / Lengthens his long stride;

Though Home be but a humming on his lip, / No happiness, no pride,

He does not drop him under the yellow whin / To sleep the darkness through;

Home to the yellow light that shines within / The kitchen of a loud shrew,

Home over stones and sand, through stagnant water / He goes, mile after mile

Home to a wordless poaching son and a daughter / With a disdainful smile,

Home to the worn reproach, the disagreeing, / The shelter, the stale air; content to be

Pecked at, confined, encroached upon,-it being

/ Too lonely, to be free.