Southward the road through juniper and briar Clambers the down, untrodden and unworn Save where some flock pitted the chalky mire With little feet at dawn.
Twice in a week the hooded carrier’s lamp, Flashing on wayside flints and grasses, spills Its misty radiance where the dews lie damp Among the untended hills;
Here lies the hamlet ringed with grassy mound And brambled barrow where, superbly dead, The dust of pagans turned to holy ground Beneath your humble tread.
Here we descend at drooping dusk the side Of the stony down beneath the planted ring Of beeches where you showed with pastoral pride The folded lambs in spring;
Here pull at eve the self-same bell that hastened Your rough-shod feet behind the hollow door— Yet never see you stand, the chain unfastened, Your lantern on the floor.
Others will spread the board now you are gone Here where you smiled and gave your guests to eat, Learning your menial kingliness from One Who washed His servants’ feet;
Along the slumbering corridor betimes Others will knock and other footsteps pass Down the wet lane e’er the thin shivering chimes Toll for the early mass.
Yet in the chapel’s self no sorrows sing In the strange priest’s voice, nor any dolour grips The heart because it is not you who bring Your Master to its lips.
Here let us leave the things you would not have— Vain grief and sorrow useless to be shown— “God’s gift and the Community’s I gave And nothing of my own,”
You would have said, self-deemed of no more worth Than the green hands that guard a poppy’s grace,— Blows the eternal flower and back to earth Tumbles the withered case.