Poetry Archives

Came the same cuckoo’s cry
  All day across the mead.
Flitted the butterfly
  All day dittering over my head.
Came a bleak crawk-caw
  Between tall broad trees.
Came shadows, floating, drifting slowly down
  Large leaves from darker trees.

Rose the lark with the rising sun,
  Rose the mist after the lark,
O wild and sweet the clamour begun
  Round the heels of the limping dark.
Rose after white cloud white cloud,
  Nodded green cloud to green;
The stiff and dark earth stirred, breathing aloud,
  And dew shook from the green.

Remained the eyes that stared,
  Ears that ached to hear;
Remained the nerve of being, bared,
  Stung with delight and fear.
Beauty flushed, ran and returned,
  Like a music rose and fell;
Staring and blind and deaf I listened and burned—
  A wilder music fell.