The Frightened Path by Abbie Farwell Brown

The wood grew very quiet

As the road made a sudden turn;

Then a wavering, furtive path crept out

From the tangled briar and fern.
“Where does it lead?” I asked the child;

She shivered and shook her head.

“It doesn’t lead to any place,

It is running away!” she said.
“It is running away on tiptoe

Through the untrodden grass,

To join the cheerful highroad,

Where real, live people pass.
“It runs from a heap of ruins

Where a home stood in old days;

But nothing living goes there now,

And — Nothing Living stays!”