OLD GRAY WALL

    Time out of mind I have stood
    Fronting the frost and the sun,
    That the dream of the world might endure,
    And the goodly will be done.

    Did the hand of the builder guess,
    As he laid me stone by stone,
    A heart in the granite lurked,
    Patient and fond as his own?

    Lovers have leaned on me
  Under the summer moon,
  And mowers laughed in my shade
  In the harvest heat at noon.

  Children roving the fields
  With early flowers in spring,
  Old men turning to look,
  When they heard a blue-bird sing,

  Have seen me a thousand times
  Standing here in the sun,
  Yet never a moment dreamed
  Whose likeness they gazed upon.