All this I was doing
Over a girl,
In loneliness going
Across the bare moor
And through the blind night
In the pitch of the darkness,
Lost from the high road.

Through many ridged fields,
Down slopes that were soggy,
Over stubble and furrow
With stumble and sorrow,
Through nine thorny thickets,
By ruined old forts,
To the brow of the mountain,

And missing the bogs
And their green habitation
Whose hateful companions
Circled around me,
A fighter betrayed
In the thick of the battle,
A man in a gaol.

But worse than the fogs
And all desolation
Were the spirits of evil
Circling around me,
And my crossing and praying,
My charming and rhyme
Of little avail.

This took a long time:
But at last I looked up
And there were the stars!
Like cherries they were
In the orchards of night,
All yellow and red,
All shining and bright.

The sparks of the bonfires
Of seven dear saints,
The gems of the host
In the harness of heaven,
The pickets of embers
Whose orbits are long
And wind cannot take them.

I stopped in my tracks,
And "Look you," I said,
"This is over and done.
She will have to be told,
God forgive me the telling,
I'll travel no more
To the door of her dwelling
Through any such going
Nor blunt my good axe
On the face of the stone."