Then down the hill to gipsies’ pitch By where the brook clucks in the ditch. A gipsy’s camp was in the copse, Three felted tents, with beehive tops, And round black marks where fires had been, And one old waggon painted green, And three ribbed horses wrenching grass, And three wild boys to watch me pass, And one old woman by the fire Hulking a rabbit warm from wire. I loved to see the horses bait. I felt I walked at Heaven’s gate, That Heaven’s gate was opened wide Yet still the gipsies camped outside. The waste souls will prefer the wild, Long after life is meek and mild. Perhaps when man has entered in His perfect city free from sin, The campers will come past the walls With old lame horses full of galls, And waggons hung about with withies, And burning coke in tinkers’ stithies, And see the golden town, and choose, And think the wild too good to lose. And camp outside, as these camped then With wonder at the entering men. So past, and past the stone-heap white That dewberry trailers hid from sight, And down the field so full of springs, Where mewing peewits clap their wings, And past the trap made for the mill Into the field below the hill. There was a mist along the stream, A wet mist, dim, like in a dream; I heard the heavy breath of cows, And waterdrops from th’alder boughs; And eels, or snakes, in dripping grass Whipping aside to let me pass. The gate was backed against the ryme To pass the cows at milking time. And by the gate as I went out A moldwarp rooted earth wi ’s snout. A few steps up the Callows’ Lane Brought me above the mist again; The two great fields arose like death Above the mists of human breath. All earthly things that blessed morning Were everlasting joy and warning. The gate was Jesus’ way made plain, The mole was Satan foiled again, Black blinded Satan snouting way Along the red of Adam’s clay; The mist was error and damnation, The lane the road unto salvation, Out of the mist into the light; O blessed gift of inner sight. The past was faded like a dream; There come the jingling of a team, A ploughman’s voice, a clink of chain, Slow hoofs, and harness under strain. Up the slow slope a team came bowing, Old Callow at his autumn ploughing, Old Callow, stooped above the hales. Ploughing the stubble into wales; His grave eyes looking straight ahead, Shearing a long straight furrow red; His plough-foot high to give it earth To bring new food for men to birth. O wet red swathe of earth laid bare, O truth, O strength, O gleaming share, O patient eyes that watch the goal, O ploughman of the sinner’s soul. O Jesus, drive the coulter deep To plough my living man from sleep.