Life Explained, Part Nineteen: "One Into Darkening Hills Leads On, And One Toward Distant Seas"

I find Walter de la Mare's poetry to be at its best when he abandons the late-Victorian diction of much of his verse.  Although he was close to Edward Thomas, and greatly valued Thomas's poetry, he seldom used the straightforward (but deep) approach that Thomas and Robert Frost embarked upon.  Nonetheless, de la Mare's poetry is still enjoyable.

The following poem is more plain-spoken, and I can almost hear a trace of Thomas in it.  (And not simply because it shares the same scene as "Adlestrop.")  As to the subject:  I suppose that journeys and way-stations on those journeys lend themselves to larger considerations.

                 The Railway Junction

From here through tunnelled gloom the track
Forks into two; and one of these
Wheels onward into darkening hills,
And one toward distant seas.

How still it is; the signal light
At set of sun shines palely green;
A thrush sings; other sound there's none,
Nor traveller to be seen --

Where late there was a throng.  And now,
In peace awhile, I sit alone;
Though soon, at the appointed hour,
I shall myself be gone.

But not their way:  the bow-legged groom,
The parson in black, the widow and son,
The sailor with his cage, the gaunt
Gamekeeper with his gun,

That fair one, too, discreetly veiled --
All, who so mutely came, and went,
Will reach those far nocturnal hills,
Or shores, ere night is spent.

I nothing know why thus we met --
Their thoughts, their longings, hopes, their fate:
And what shall I remember, except --
The evening growing late --

That here through tunnelled gloom the track
Forks into two; of these
One into darkening hills leads on,
And one toward distant seas?

Walter de la Mare, The Fleeting and Other Poems (1933).

                                Spencer Gore, "Letchworth Station" (1912)