AT RAVENSCAR

The misty clover fields made yesterday

Continual moonrise over the blue bay.

Now mown they lie, and wan, blossom and grasses

Giving their sweet souls up as the wind passes.

The shy white stars of the dawn refuse to stay

When morning grows up into lusty day.

The childlike naked clouds, cutting their capers,

Great sea winds melt into the mightier vapours.

The million waves of the ever-sounding shore

So lavishly their singing light outpour;

They rhyme with the young limbs leaping,

playing through them

Like all the world’s lost poems, if we knew them.

Dear pilgrim world, your light and glory go

The sunrise way, and no abiding know.

Yet down the great road of the ages ringing

Light is your step, and I can hear you singing.

Life’s rounded but not ended with a sleep.

And here’s no rest, nor anything to keep.

For all things pass with an increasing splendour

From circle to circle of their spiritual being,

Finding like mist sun-slain (a like surrender)

Spheres far too fine and lovely for our seeing.