| VOICES moving about in the quiet house: | |
| Thud of feet and a muffled shutting of doors: | |
| Everyone yawning. Only the clocks are alert. | |
| |
| Out in the night there’s autumn-smelling gloom | |
| Crowded with whispering trees; across the park | 5 |
| A hollow cry of hounds like lonely bells: | |
| And I know that the clouds are moving across the moon; | |
| The low, red, rising moon. Now herons call | |
| And wrangle by their pool; and hooting owls | |
| Sail from the wood above pale stooks of oats. | 10 |
| |
| Waiting for sleep, I drift from thoughts like these; | |
| And where to-day was dream-like, build my dreams. | |
| Music ... there was a bright white room below, | |
| And someone singing a song about a soldier, | |
| One hour, two hours ago: and soon the song | 15 |
| Will be ‘last night’: but now the beauty swings | |
| Across my brain, ghost of remembered chords | |
| Which still can make such radiance in my dream | |
| That I can watch the marching of my soldiers, | |
| And count their faces; faces; sunlit faces. | 20 |
| |
| Falling asleep ... the herons, and the hounds.... | |
| September in the darkness; and the world | |
| I’ve known; all fading past me into peace. | |
