Before the nightjar spins or the nightingale begins;
When the brooding hedgerow trees where they nest lie awake
And breathe so soft they shake not a single shuddering leaf
Lest the silence should break.
'Other sleep have I known,
Deeper, beyond belief, when straining limbs relax
After hot human toil in yellow harvest fields
Where the panting earth yields a smell of baked soil,
And the dust of dry stubbles blows over the whitening
Shocks of lank grain and bundles of flax,