Part 5 (2/2)

All that you are is that Christ's loss.'

The clock run down and struck a chime And Mrs Si said, 'Closing time.'

The wet was pelting on the pane And something broke inside my brain, I heard the rain drip from the gutters And Silas putting up the shutters, While one by one the drinkers went; I got a glimpse of what it meant, How she and I had stood before In some old town by some old door Waiting intent while someone knocked Before the door for ever locked; She was so white that I was scared, A gas-jet, turned the wrong way, flared, And Silas snapped the bars in place.

Miss Bourne stood white and searched my face.

When Silas done, with ends of tunes He 'gan a-gathering the spittoons, His wife primmed lips and took the till.

Miss Bourne stood still and I stood still, And 'Tick. Slow. Tick. Slow' went the clock.

She said, 'He waits until you knock.'

She turned at that and went out swift, Si grinned and winked, his missus sniffed.

I heard her clang the Lion door, I marked a drink-drop roll to floor; It took up sc.r.a.ps of sawdust, furry, And crinkled on, a half inch, blurry; A drop from my last gla.s.s 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 G.o.d'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 c.h.i.n.king gla.s.s 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 rus.h.i.+ng 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 G.o.d'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 gra.s.ses, The dawn which pa.s.s and never pa.s.ses.

'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 la.s.s 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 G.o.d'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.

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 gra.s.s, And three wild boys to watch me pa.s.s, 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 c.o.ke in tinkers' st.i.thies, 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 gra.s.s Whipping aside to let me pa.s.s.

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