Voices moving about in the quiet house:
Thud of feet and a muffled shutting of doors:
Everyone yawning ... only the clocks are alert.
Out in the night there's autumn-smelling gloom
Crowded with whispering trees,--looming of oaks
That roared in wild wet gales: across the park
The hollow cry of hounds like lonely bells:
And I know that the clouds are moving across the moon,
The low, red, rising moon.
The herons call
And wrangle by their pool; and hooting owls
Sail from the wood across pale stocks of wheat.
Waiting for sleep, I drift from thoughts like these;
And where to-day was dream-like, build my dreams.
Music ... there was a bright white room below,
And someone singing a song about a soldier,--
One hour, two hours ago; and soon the song
Will be 'last night': but now the beauty swings
Across my brain, ghost of remember'd chords
Which still can make such radiance in my dream
That I can watch the marching of my soldiers,
And count their faces; faces; sunlit faces.
Falling asleep ... the herons, and the hounds...
September in the darkness; and the world
I've known; all fading past me into peace.