Under a wall of bronze, Where beeches dip and trail Their branches in the water; With red-tipped head and wings— A beaked ship under sail— There glides a single swan. Under the autumn trees He goes. The branches quiver, Dance in the wraith-like water, Which ripples beneath the sedge With the slackening furrow that glides In his wake when he is gone: The beeches bow dark heads. Into the windless dusk, Where in mist great towers stand Guarding a lonely strand, That is bodiless and dim, He speeds with easy stride; And I would go beside, Till the low brown hills divide At last, for me and him. LONDON NIGHTFALL I saw the shapes that stood upon the clouds: And they were tiger-breasted, shot with light, And all of them, lifting long trumpets together, Blew over the city, for the night to come. Down in the street, we floundered in the mud; Above, in endless files, gold angels came And stood upon the clouds, and blew their horns For night. Like a wet petal crumpled, Twilight fell soddenly on the weary city; The ’buses lurched and groaned, The shops put up their doors. But skywards, far aloft, The angels, vanishing, waved broad plumes of gold, Summoning spirits from a thousand hills To pour the thick night out upon the earth. DAWN Above the east horizon, The great red flower of the dawn Opens slowly, petal by petal; The trees emerge from darkness With ghostly silver leaves, Dew powdered. Now consciousness emerges Reluctantly out of tides of sleep; Finding with cold surprise No strange new thing to match its dreams, But merely the familiar shapes Of bedpost, window-pane, and wall. Within the city, The streets which were the last to fall to sleep, Hold yet stale fragments of the night. Sleep oozes out of stagnant ash-barrels, Sleep drowses over litter in the streets. Sleep nods upon the milkcans by back doors. And, in shut rooms, Behind the lowered window-blinds, Drawn white faces unwittingly flout the day.