III

     Now seems none but the spider lord;
     Star in circle his web waits prey,
     Silvering bush-mounds, blue brushing sward;
     Slow runs the hour, swift flits the ray. 
     Now to his thread-shroud is he nigh,
     Nigh to the tangle where wings are sealed,
     He who frolicked the jewelled fly;
     All is adroop on the down and the weald.

     IV

     Mists more lone for the sheep-bell enwrap
     Nights that tardily let slip a morn
     Paler than moons, and on noontide’s lap
     Flame dies cold, like the rose late born. 
     Rose born late, born withered in bud! —
     I, even I, for a zenith of sun
     Cry, to fulfil me, nourish my blood: 
     O for a day of the long light, one!

     V

     Master the blood, nor read by chills,
     Earth admonishes:  Hast thou ploughed,
     Sown, reaped, harvested grain for the mills,
     Thou hast the light over shadow of cloud. 
     Steadily eyeing, before that wail
     Animal-infant, thy mind began,
     Momently nearer me:  should sight fail,
     Plod in the track of the husbandman.

     VI

     Verily now is our season of seed,
     Now in our Autumn; and Earth discerns
     Them that have served her in them that can read,
     Glassing, where under the surface she burns,
     Quick at her wheel, while the fuel, decay,
     Brightens the fire of renewal:  and we? 
     Death is the word of a bovine day,
     Know you the breast of the springing To-be.

     Hard weather

     Bursts from a rending East in flaws
     The young green leaflet’s harrier, sworn
     To strew the garden, strip the shaws,
     And show our Spring with banner torn. 
     Was ever such virago morn? 
     The wind has teeth, the wind has claws. 
     All the wind’s wolves through woods are loose,
     The wild wind’s falconry aloft. 
     Shrill underfoot the grassblade shrews,
     At gallop, clumped, and down the croft
     Bestrid by shadows, beaten, tossed;
     It seems a scythe, it seems a rod. 
     The howl is up at the howl’s accost;
     The shivers greet and the shivers nod.

     Is the land ship? we are rolled, we drive
     Tritonly, cleaving hiss and hum;
     Whirl with the dead, or mount or dive,
     Or down in dregs, or on in scum. 
     And drums the distant, pipes the near,
     And vale and hill are grey in grey,
     As when the surge is crumbling sheer,
     And sea-mews wing the haze of spray. 
     Clouds—­are they bony witches?—­swarms,
     Darting swift on the robber’s flight,
     Hurry an infant sky in arms: 
     It peeps, it becks; ’tis day, ’tis night. 
     Black while over the loop of blue
     The swathe is closed, like shroud on corse. 
     Lo, as if swift the Furies flew,
     The Fates at heel at a cry to horse!