DOWN
Downstairs a clock had chimed, two o'clock only.
Then outside from the hen-roost crowing came.
But why should Shift-wing call against the clock,
Three hours from dawn? The shutters click and knock,
And he remembers a sad superstition
Unfitting for the sick-bed—Turn aside,
Distract, divide, ponder the simple tales
That puzzled childhood; riddles, turn them over,
Half-riddles, answerless, the more intense!—
Lost bars of music tinkling with no sense
Recur, drowning uneasy superstition.
Mouth open, he was lying, this sick man,
And sinking all the while; how had he come
To sink? On better nights his dream went flying,
Dipping, sailing the pasture of his sleep,
But now, since clock and cock, had sunk him down
Through mattress, bed, floor, floors beneath, stairs, cellars,
Through deep foundations of the manse; still sinking
Through unturned earth. How had he cheated space
With inadvertent motion or word uttered
Of too-close-packed intelligence (such there are)
That he should penetrate with sliding ease,
Dense earth, compound of ages, granite ribs
And groins? Consider, there was some word uttered,
Some abracadabra—then like a stage-ghost,
Funereally with weeping, down, drowned, lost!
Oh, to be a child once more, sprawling at ease,
On warm turf of a ruined castle court.
Once he had dropped a stone between flat slabs
That mask the ancient well, mysteriously
Plunging his mind down with it. Hear it go
Rattling and rocketing down in secret void.
Count slowly one, two, three! and echoes rise
Fainter and fainter, merged in the gradual hum
Of bees and flies; only a thin draught rises
To chill the drowsy air; he for a while
Lay without spirit; until that floated back
From the deep waters. Oh, to renew now
The bliss of repossession, kindly sun
Forfeit for ever, and the scent of thyme!
Falling, falling! Light closed up behind him,
Now stunned by the violent subterrene flow
Of rivers, whirling down to hiss below
On the flame-axis of this terrible world;
Toppling upon their water-fall, O spirit ...