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Maid Of The Lakes

She had got off the stage in Keswick town
and, glad of a hat, walked six miles,

her skirt hitched up, her mind on each
step in each rut in the lane, then thinking

further ahead, for the night was drawing in,
of the stranger waiting for her at the house

(a stranger as she's now long dead)
sat in the bay window of the library

its books in need of her careful dusting,
conjuring her from the mist and wet trees.

 

 

Note: The 'stage' in the first line is a stagecoach, the bus service of its time. Keswick is in the Lake District in England, an area of lakes and hills that is also know as 'The Lakes' as in the poem's title.

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