[Gutenberg 50376] • Oxford Poetry, 1920

Excerpt from Oxford Poetry, 1920

Hen on the green the rag-tag game had Stopt, And red the lights through alehouse curtains glowed, The clambering brake drove out and took the road. Then on the stern moors all the babble dropt Among those merry men, who felt the dew Sweet to the Soul and saw the southern blue Thronged with heat lightning leagues and leagues abroad, Working and whickering; snake-like; winged and clawed; Or like old carp lazily rising and shouldering, Long the slate cloud flank shook with the death-white smoulder ing; Yet not a voice. The night drooped oven-hot; Then where the turnpike pierced the black wood plot, Tongues wagged again and each man felt the grim Destiny of the hour speaking through him: And then tales came of dwarfs on Starling Hill, And those young swimmers drowned at the roller mill, Where on the drowsiest noon the undertow Famishing for life boiled like a pot below: And how two higglers at the Walnut Tree Had curst the Lord in thunderstorm and He Had struck them into soot with lightning then It left the pitchers whole, it killed the men. Many a lad and many a lass was named Who once stept bold and proud - but death had tamed Their revel on the eve of May: cut short The primrosing and promise of good sport, Shut up the score book, laid the ribbands by.

Such bodings mustered from the fevered Sky; But now the Spring well through the honeycomb Of scored stone rumbling tokened them near home.

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