Lyr. Add: The Last Billet
T. G. Roberts

Some day I'll come to that still place
And bid the old man smooth my bed.
No hurry of departure then,
No waking when the dawn is red.

The same kind trees will sing to me
Day after day, night after night.
The wind that wanders in the grass
Will bring no tidings of the fight.

In that still hostelry of rest,
Where time is not and sleep is long,
I'll clean forget the thing unwon
And pain of the unfinished song.

Night will not find me journeying
Where endless roads in dusk are set
On some fool's errand down the world,
Hag-ridden by an old regret.

Some evening I shall turn aside
To that dark hostelry of rest
And at the threshold loose my spurs
And to the wind bequeath my quest.

The Lost Shipmate, 1926, Theodore Goodridge Roberts, The Ryerson Poetry Chap-books, Canada.