Wider Country

The brass key rests beside the flowers

On a dish the steward painted blue

I have counted all the quiet hours

Since the old house opened up to you

Down the hall, the portraits keep their weather

I can leave their borrowed gaze behind

I was not made for a locked garden

Or a name stitched neatly in a frame

I will take the lane past the barley

With my own two hands

In my own name

Let the great rooms keep their dust and roses

I have wider country in my veins

There are boots beside the kitchen doorway

And a map rolled underneath

Every mile is waiting in the fold lines

Every road has room for honest air

If the morning finds me without answers

That is still a life I chose to find

I was not made for a locked garden

Or a name stitched neatly in a frame

I will take the lane past the barley

With my own two hands and my own name

Let the great rooms keep their

Dust and roses

I have wider country in my veins

No farewell beneath the marble ceiling

No last look to make the leaving grand

Just the gate, the gravel and the feeling

Of a future opening its hand

I was not made for a locked garden

Or a name stitched neatly in a frame

I will take the lane past the barley

With my own two hands

In my own name

Let the great rooms keep their dust and roses

I have wider country in my veins

The brass key rests beside the flowers

And the road is bright beyond the rain