And turned but once e'er the door was shut,
Shouting to Eldred over his butt
That he bring all spears to the woodman's hut
Hewn under Egbert's Stone.
Shouting to Eldred over his butt
That he bring all spears to the woodman's hut
Hewn under Egbert's Stone.
And he turned his back and broke the fern
And fought the moths of dusk;
And went on his way for other friends —
Friends fallen of all the wide world's ends;
From Rome that wrath and pardon sends
And the gray towns on Usk.
And fought the moths of dusk;
And went on his way for other friends —
Friends fallen of all the wide world's ends;
From Rome that wrath and pardon sends
And the gray towns on Usk.
He saw gigantic tracks of death
And many a shape of doom,
Good steadings to grey ashes gone
And a monk's house, white like a skeleton,
In the green crypt of the combe.
And many a shape of doom,
Good steadings to grey ashes gone
And a monk's house, white like a skeleton,
In the green crypt of the combe.
And in many a Roman villa
Earth and her ivies eat,
Saw coloured pavements sink and fade
In flowers; and the windy colonnade
Like the spectre of a street.
Earth and her ivies eat,
Saw coloured pavements sink and fade
In flowers; and the windy colonnade
Like the spectre of a street.
But the cold stars clustered
Among the cold pines
Ere he was half on his pilgrimage
Over the western lines.
Among the cold pines
Ere he was half on his pilgrimage
Over the western lines.
21
