A Twilight In Middle March

Within the oak a throb of pigeon wings Fell silent, and grey twilight hushed the fold, And spiders' hammocks swung on half-oped things That shook like foreigners upon our cold. A gipsy lit a fire and made a sound Of moving tins, and from an oblong moon The river seemed to gush across the ground To the cracked metre of a marching tune.

And then three syllables of melody Dropped from a blackbird's flute, and died apart Far in the dewy dark. No more but three, Yet sweeter music never touched a heart Neath the blue domes of London. Flute and reed, Suggesting feelings of the solitude When will was all the Delphi I would heed, Lost like a wind within a summer wood From little knowledge where great sorrows brood.