Mrs. Thomas Willow seems very glum.
Her life, perhaps, is very lonely and hum-drum,
Digging up potatoes, cleaning out the weeds,
Doing the little for a lone woman’s needs.
Who was her husband? How long ago?
What does she wonder? What does she know?
Why does she listen over the wall,
Morning and noon-time and twilight and all,
As though unforgotten were some footfall?

“Good morning, Mrs. Willow.” “Good morning, sir,”
Is all the conversation I can get from her.
And her path-stones are white as lilies of the wood,
And she washes this and that till she must be very good.
She sends no letters, and no one calls,
And she doesn’t go whispering beyond her walls;
Nothing in her garden is secret, I think—
That’s all sun-bright with foxglove and pink,
And she doesn’t hover around old cupboards and shelves
As old people do who have buried themselves;
She has no late lamps, and she digs all day
And polishes and plants in a common way,
But glum she is, and she listens now and then
For a footfall, a footfall, a footfall again,
And whether it’s hope, or whether it’s dread,
Or a poor old fancy in her head,
I shall never be told; it will never be said.