1
Long after all the talking people go
On the white boat that rounds the sandy point,
The silenced hollows of the Commons show
A deepening curve; and where the grasses blow,
Dried to October wraith, I see annoint
A hundred lanes and valleys splashed with glints
Of silver moss and tawny tapered mints.
2
And where the moor roads plough the tangled sand
The sky’s blue river floods these merging hills,
Pocomo Head white morning fire spills;
The deep swung ponds with sapphire sweep expand
Walled with red berries of the alder bough;
Stark monkish trees slant on the windblown space,
And gulls dip to the bay or open meadow place.
3
This is a world gone wild with wine of life,
Tossed in bright cups on frost enholied air;
Here Autumn swings the west wind’s winnowing scythe,
Or amber shod strays down the coral flare.
And on the shimmering slopes the swallows blithe
Still turn ecstatic honey-tipped wings
And dart anew on rhythmic balancings.
4
I think that he who walks this undulance
Goes like a child back to some crystal Source,
Rich in adventures of the fields’ romance,
The thistles’ aeroplane, the gold of gorse;
Or buoyant, treading silver lichen crisp
Wing-footed on the elastic sod,
Fares on the milkweed’s fanned ethereal wisp
Past semaphore of broom or goldenrod.
5
For here he finds the ineffable escape,
The clarity, the cleanness and the soul;
Here’s laying on of hands, here things reshape
Into the round equilibrated Whole.
Here all is light and line, this grey fence strings
Its silver loops in limpid meadow lights;
Or drops its bars to infinite wanderings
By glimmering swamps on brake-illumined nights.