When William Cain came back to Centreville
The first time since the day he left his people
He found that storms had halved the Baptist steeple
And a spring flood had carried off the mill
And though he found a few old sweethearts still,
Each apple cheek he once had pressed his lip in
Was puckered like a sour Winter Pippin
In which the worms of time had worked their will.
But sadder somehow in these meetings was
The sudden thought that took him unaware:
How high-arched feet that danced upon the grass
Or raced along the roadways brown and bare
Had sagged beneath the growing weight of care
To plod flat-footed like a spavined mare.