To-morrow they cut it down. They will leave The barn, as I shall be left, maybe. What holds it up? 'Twould not pay to pull down. Well, this place has no other antiquity. No abbey or castle looks so old As this that Job Knight built in '54, Built to keep corn for rats and men. Now there's fowls in the roof, pigs on the floor. What thatch survives is dung for the grass, The best grass on the farm. A pity the roof Will not bear a mower to mow it. But Only fowls have foothold enough. Starlings used to sit there with bubbling throats Making a spiky beard as they chattered And whistled and kissed, with heads in air, Till they thought of something else that mattered. But now they cannot find a place, Among all those holes, for a nest any more. It's the turn of lesser things, I suppose. Once I fancied 'twas starlings they built it for. THE BARN AND THE DOWN IT stood in the sunset sky Like the straight-backed down, Many a time--the barn At the edge of the town, So huge and dark that it seemed It was the hill Till the gable's precipice proved It impossible. Then the great down in the west Grew into sight, A barn stored full to the ridge With black of night; And the barn fell to a barn Or even less Before critical eyes and its own Late mightiness. But far down and near barn and I Since then have smiled, Having seen my new cautiousness By itself beguiled To disdain what seemed the barn Till a few steps changed It past all doubt to the down; So the barn was avenged. THE CHILD ON THE CLIFFS MOTHER, the root of this little yellow flower Among the stones has the taste of quinine. Things are strange to-day on the cliff. The sun shines so bright, And the grasshopper works at his sewing-machine So hard. Here's one on my hand, mother, look; I lie so still. There's one on your book. But I have something to tell more strange. So leave Your book to the grasshopper, mother dear,-- Like a green knight in a dazzling market-place,-- And listen now. Can you hear what I hear Far out? Now and then the foam there curls And stretches a white arm out like a girl's. Fishes and gulls ring no bells. There cannot be A chapel or church between here and Devon, With fishes or gulls ringing its bell,--hark.-- Somewhere under the sea or up in heaven. "It's the bell, my son, out in the bay On the buoy. It does sound sweet to-day." Sweeter I never heard, mother, no, not in all Wales. I should like to be lying under that foam, Dead, but able to hear the sound of the bell, And certain that you would often come And rest, listening happily. I should be happy if that could be. GOOD-NIGHT. THE skylarks are far behind that sang over the down; I can hear no more those suburb nightingales; Thrushes and blackbirds sing in the gardens of the town In vain: the noise of man, beast, and machine prevails.