And nothing in their bellies but a fill Of cold peat-water, till their heads were light ... The crackling of a rifle on the hill Rang in his ears: and stung to headlong flight, He started to his feet; and through the brake He plunged in panic, heedless of the sun That burned his cropped head to a red-hot ache Still racked with crackling echoes of the gun. Then suddenly the sun-enkindled fire Of gorse upon the moor-top caught his eye: And that gold glow held all his heart's desire, As, like a witless, flame-bewildered fly, He blundered towards the league-wide yellow blaze, And tumbled headlong on the spikes of bloom; And rising, bruised and bleeding and adaze, Struggled through clutching spines; the dense, sweet fume Of nutty, acrid scent like poison stealing Through his hot blood; the bristling yellow glare Spiking his eyes with fire, till he went reeling, Stifled and blinded, on--and did not care Though he were taken--wandering round and round, 'Jerusalem the Golden' quavering shrill, Changing his tune to 'Tommy Tiddler's Ground': Till, just a lost child on that dazzling hill, Bewildered in a glittering golden maze Of stinging scented fire, he dropped, quite done, A shrivelling wisp within a world ablaze Beneath a blinding sky, one blaze of sun. HOOPS [Scene: The big tent-stable of a travelling circus. On the ground near the entrance GENTLEMAN JOHN, stableman and general odd-job man, lies smoking beside MERRY ANDREW, the clown. GENTLEMAN JOHN is a little hunched man with a sensitive face and dreamy eyes. MERRY ANDREW, who is resting between the afternoon and evening performances, with his clown's hat lying beside him, wears a crimson wig, and a baggy suit of orange-coloured cotton, patterned with purple cats. His face is chalked dead-white, and painted with a set grin, so that it is impossible to see what manner of man he is. In the back-ground are camels and elephants feeding, dimly visible in the steamy dusk of the tent.] Gentleman John: