Foreign Hills

You would not think that, lost so young
         Here in this outer land,
I still should feel my spirit wrung
   And still not understand . . .

Though Grenstone is the name they said,
   And though I pack my load

And though my cap is on my head —
  What do I care which road?

What does it matter where I go,
   When all I do is roam

Far from a place I used to know,
   From hills and streams of home?

And foreign waters only smart
   The lips that they caress

And foreign hills but bruise the heart
   With vanished happiness.

From Grenstone Poems: A Sequence (Frederick A. Stokes, 1917) by Witter Bynner. Copyright © 1917 by Frederick A. Stokes. This poem is in the public domain.