OFTEN and often it came back again To mind, the day I passed the horizon ridge To a new country, the path I had to find By half-gaps that were stiles once in the hedge, The pack of scarlet clouds running across The harvest evening that seemed endless then And after, and the inn where all were kind, All were strangers. I did not know my loss Till one day twelve months later suddenly I leaned upon my spade and saw it all, Though far beyond the sky-line. It became Almost a habit through the year for me To lean and see it and think to do the same Again for two days and a night. Recall Was vain: no more could the restless brook Ever turn back and climb the waterfall To the lake that rests and stirs not in its nook, As in the hollow of the collar-bone Under the mountain's head of rush and stone. HOME OFTEN I had gone this way before: But now it seemed I never could be And never had been anywhere else; 'Twas home; one nationality We had, I and the birds that sang, One memory. They welcomed me. I had come back That eve somehow from somewhere far: The April mist, the chill, the calm, Meant the same thing familiar And pleasant to us, and strange too, Yet with no bar. The thrush on the oaktop in the lane Sang his last song, or last but one; And as he ended, on the elm Another had but just begun His last; they knew no more than I The day was done. Then past his dark white cottage front A labourer went along, his tread Slow, half with weariness, half with ease; And, through the silence, from his shed The sound of sawing rounded all That silence said. THE HOLLOW WOOD OUT in the sun the goldfinch flits Along the thistle-tops, flits and twits Above the hollow wood Where birds swim like fish-- Fish that laugh and shriek-- To and fro, far below In the pale hollow wood. Lichen, ivy, and moss Keep evergreen the trees That stand half-flayed and dying, And the dead trees on their knees In dog's-mercury and moss: And the bright twit of the goldfinch drops Down there as he flits on thistle-tops. WIND AND MIST