Last night a sword-light in the sky
Flashed a swift terror on the dark.
In that sharp light the fields did lie
Naked and stone-like; each tree stood
Like a tranced woman, bound and stark.
Far off the wood
With darkness ridged the riven dark.
And cows astonished stared with fear,
And sheep crept to the knees of cows,
And conies to their burrows slid,
And rooks were still in rigid boughs,
And all things else were still or hid.
From all the wood
Came but the owl's hoot, ghostly, clear.
In that cold trance the earth was held
It seemed an age, or time was nought.
There always is a noise when it is
dark ;
It is the noise of silence and the noise
Of blindness.
The noise of silence and the noise of
blindness
Do frighten me,
They hold me stark and rigid as a
tree !
These frighten me,
These hold me stark and rigid as a
tree !
Because at last their tumult is more
loud
Than thunder.
Because at last
I HAVE seen Death and the faces of men in fear
Of Death, and shattered, terribly ruined flesh,
Appalled; but through the horror, coloured and clear
The love of my county, Gloster, rises afresh.
And on the Day of Days, the Judgment Day,
The Word of Doom awaiting breathless and still,
I’ll marvel how sweet’s the air down Framilode way,
And take my sentence on sheer-down Crickley Hill.
The “crumps” are falling twenty to the minute.
We crouch, and wait the end of it--or us.
Just behind the trench, before, and in it,
The “crumps” are falling twenty to the minute;
(O Framilode! O Maisemore’s laughing linnet!)
Here comes a monster like a motor-bus.
The “crumps” are falling twenty to the minute:
We crouch and wait the end of it--or us.
Discomfort sweeps my quiet as a wind
Leaps at trees and leaves them cold and thinned.
Not that I fear again the mastery
Of winds, for holding my indifference dear
I do not feel illusions stripped from me.
And yet this is a fear —
A fear of old discarded fears, of days
That cried out at irrevocable ways.
I cower for my own old cowardice.
For hours that beat upon the wind's broad breast
With hands as impotent as leaves are; this
Robs my new hour of rest.
I thought my pride had covered long ago
All the old scars, like broken twigs in snow.
I thought to luxuriate in rich decay,
As some far-seeing tree upon a hill;
Do you hear the witches wailing?
Witches wailing, wailing, wailing,
Do you see the ghost robes trailing?
Ghost robes trailing, trailing, trailing
It is but a nighttime whisper,
But a whisper of the zephyr?
Or my soul in secret meeting
That dim soul whose fate is loving?
Tell me, tell me, tell me,
Voices of the Dusk.
Do you see those spirits lonely?
Spirits lonely, lonely, lonely.
Can they be for lost souls only?
Lost souls only, only, only.
Are they but the fearful phantoms,
Fearful phantoms from my fancy?
When Grandmother Polly had married and gone,
But before her father had given her Clem,
Or Joe, or Sandy, or Evaline--
Before he had given her any of them,
She used to live in a far-away place,
In a little cabin that was her home,
And all around were bushes and trees,
And the wolves could come.
At night they ran down out of the rocks
And bristled up their trembly fur.
They came and howled by Polly's door
And showed their little white teeth at her.
The light was burning very dim,
The little blaze was brown and red,
And I waked just in time to see
A panther going under the bed.
I saw him crowd his body down
To make it fit the little space.
I saw the streaks along his back,
And bloody bubbles on his face.
Long marks of light came out of my eyes
And went into the lamp--and there
Was Something waiting in the room--
I saw it sitting on a chair.
Its only eye was shining red,
Its face was very long and gray,
Its two bent teeth were sticking out,
And all its jaw was torn away.
I looked for him everywhere
Because I wanted him to play;
And then I found him on his bed
Asleep, but it was day.
His eyes were shut behind the lids--
He couldn't lift them up to see.
And I looked at him very long,
And something in him looked at me.
And he was something like a cat
That is asleep, or like a dog;
Or like a thing that's in the woods
All day behind a log.
And then I was afraid of it,
Of something that was sleeping there.
I didn't even say his name,
But I came down the stair.
Away beyond the Jarboe house
I saw a different kind of tree.
Its trunk was old and large and bent,
And I could feel it look at me.
The road was going on and on
Beyond to reach some other place.
I saw a tree that looked at me,
And yet it did not have a face.
It looked at me with all its limbs;
It looked at me with all its bark.
The yellow wrinkles on its sides
Were bent and dark.
And then I ran to get away,
But when I stopped to turn and see,
The tree was bending to the side
And leaning out to look at me.
I was a soldier once. How fear was then
Mixed with bright honour and delightful pride !
How different we were from other men,
Who lived in houses and in houses died !
How huge the morning was, before the sun
Sullenly found us marching in the mist !
And sleep was dark and deep when work was done
And food awoke in us a greedy zest.
But all that's over. I no more shall see,
Quick to the word and ready to my hand,
The smooth and easy moving company
Marching in column on the heathery land.
There's no pride now and fear's the fear that's bred
Of money and suchlike maggots in the head.
I cannot but remember
When the year grows old--
October--November--
How she disliked the cold!
She used to watch the swallows
Go down across the sky,
And turn from the window
With a little sharp sigh.
And often when the brown leaves
Were brittle on the ground,
And the wind in the chimney
Made a melancholy sound,
She had a look about her
That I wish I could forget--
The look of a scared thing
Sitting in a net!