I heard her clang the Lion door, I marked a drink-drop roll to floor; It took up scraps of sawdust, furry, And crinkled on, a half inch, blurry; A drop from my last glass of gin; And someone waiting to come in, A hand upon the door latch gropin’ Knocking the man inside to open. I know the very words I said, They bayed like bloodhounds in my head. ’The water’s going out to sea And there’s a great moon calling me; But there’s a great sun calls the moon, And all God’s bells will carol soon For joy and glory and delight Of someone coming home to-night.’ Out into darkness, out to night, My flaring heart gave plenty light, So wild it was there was no knowing Whether the clouds or stars were blowing; Blown chimney pots and folk blown blind And puddles glimmering like my mind, And chinking glass from windows banging, And inn signs swung like people hanging, And in my heart the drink unpriced, The burning cataracts of Christ. I did not think, I did not strive, The deep peace burnt my me alive; The bolted door had broken in, I knew that I had done with sin. I knew that Christ had given me birth To brother all the souls on earth, And every bird and every beast Should share the crumbs broke at the feast. O glory of the lighted mind. How dead I’d been, how dumb, how blind. The station brook, to my new eyes, Was babbling out of Paradise; The waters rushing from the rain Were singing Christ has risen again. I thought all earthly creatures knelt From rapture of the joy I felt. The narrow station-wall’s brick ledge, The wild hop withering in the hedge, The lights in huntsman’s upper storey Were parts of an eternal glory, Were God’s eternal garden flowers. I stood in bliss at this for hours. O glory of the lighted soul. The dawn came up on Bradlow Knoll, The dawn with glittering on the grasses, The dawn which pass and never passes. ’It’s dawn,’ I said, ’and chimney’s smoking, And all the blessed fields are soaking. It’s dawn, and there’s an engine shunting; And hounds, for huntsman’s going hunting. It’s dawn, and I must wander north Along the road Christ led me forth.’ So up the road I wander slow Past where the snowdrops used to grow With celandines in early springs, When rainbows were triumphant things And dew so bright and flowers so glad, Eternal joy to lass and lad. And past the lovely brook I paced, The brook whose source I never traced, The brook, the one of two which rise In my green dream in Paradise, In wells where heavenly buckets clink To give God’s wandering thirsty drink By those clean cots of carven stone Where the clear water sings alone. Then down, past that white-blossomed pond, And past the chestnut trees beyond, And past the bridge the fishers knew, Where yellow flag flowers once grew, Where we’d go gathering cops of clover, In sunny June times long since over. O clover-cops half white, half red, O beauty from beyond the dead. O blossom, key to earth and heaven, O souls that Christ has new forgiven.