There’s a little bush I hear
Muttering, frightened, half-asleep;
Now a leafy voice, more deep,
Rustles vague comfort, soothes its fear.
Water flows not as by day.
A new tone through its voice has crept.
Streams that in daylight laughed and leapt
And had humorous things to say,
Speak so gravely now, and mutter
Of things secret, scarcely guessed,
Winds’ and Waters’ veiled unrest,
Griefs too big for man to utter.
Of the days before man came
The days when man shall be no more,
And Earth again be ruled by Four,
Air and Water, Earth and Flame.
Now a sudden silence falls;
Until like rocking, silver boats
Come the curlew’s ripply notes
How far the curious music calls!
And sweet twitters whisper clearly
From the tree tops dimly seen
Piping from the shadowy green
That the dawn is here, or nearly.
‘A STRONGER THAN HE SHALL COME UPON HIM...’
And then he was seized by one who was stronger than he,
Seized and tamed and bound and forced to obey;
From the swinging choice of evil or good he was free;
Good was no longer; evil had vanished away
He left to another the gain or loss of the day.
Was he driven or drawn? What matter? He was content.
He yielded him, body and soul, to the whirl of War
As one yields to the high sea-wind, and is buffered, bent
To his will, when, shouting, he stamps in over the shore
Triumphant, driving all things like dust before.