The long town ends at Littleholme, where the road Creeps up to hills of ancient-looking stone. Under the hanging eaves at Littleholme A latticed casement peeps above still gardens Into a crown of druid-solemn trees Upon a knoll as high as a small house, A shapely mound made so by nameless men Whose smoothing touch yet shows through the green hide. When the slow moonlight drips from leaf to leaf Of that sharp, plumy gloom, and the hour comes When something seems awaited, though unknown, There should appear between those leaf-thatched piles Fresh, long-limbed women striding easily, And men whose hair-plaits swing with their shagged arms; Returning in that equal, echoed light Which does not measure time to the dear garths That were their own when from white Norway coasts They landed on a kind, not distant shore, And to the place where they have left their clothing, Their long-accustomed bones and hair and beds That once were pleasant to them, in that barrow Their vanished children heaped above them dead: For in the soundless stillness of hot noon The mind of man, noticeable in that knoll, Enhances its dark presence with a life More vivid and more actual than the life Of self-sown trees and untouched earth. It is seen What aspect this land had in those first eyes: In that regard the works of later men Fall in and sink like lime when it is slaked, Staid, youthful queen and weavers are unborn, And the new crags the Northmen saw are set About an earth that has not been misused. * * * * * FRANCIS BRETT YOUNG INVOCATION Whither, O, my sweet mistress, must I follow thee? For when I hear thy distant footfall nearing, And wait on thy appearing, Lo! my lips are silent: no words come to me. Once I waylaid thee in green forest covers, Hoping that spring might free my lips with gentle fingers; Alas! her presence lingers No longer than on the plain the shadow of brown kestrel hovers. Through windless ways of the night my spirit followed after; Cold and remote were they, and there, possessed By a strange unworldly rest, Awaiting thy still voice heard only starry laughter. The pillared halls of sleep echoed my ghostly tread. Yet when their secret chambers I essayed My spirit sank, dismayed, Waking in fear to find the new-born vision fled. Once indeed--but then my spirit bloomed in leafy rapture-- I loved; and once I looked death in the eyes: So, suddenly made wise, Spoke of such beauty as I may never recapture.... Whither, O, divine mistress, must I then follow thee? Is it only in love ... say, is it only in death That the spirit blossometh, And words that may match my vision shall come to me? PROTHALAMION When the evening came my love said to me: Let us go into the garden now that the sky is cool; The garden of black hellebore and rosemary, Where wild woodruff spills in a milky pool.