LET us not further trespass down this lane Since now the trees will feel a leathern tread Over their hidden feet, and silenced Will know we are not centaurs come again. A moment past, and they perhaps had seen In our slow-moving shadows, only those, So rapt were they in sound, they might have been With shouting autumn seas where no man knows. But now the weald is very still; above, That quadrature of limbs like twisted bars, Has scarcely moved, since last the great wind drove Its Viking song beneath the candent stars. So thunderous a force, it seemed the downs Would crumble in its passing, and be gone When we who loved them, in our orisons, Looked southward for their silhouette at dawn. Familiar winds there are, as shepherds know, That wheel above the southdown flocks at noon, And those that in the twilight come and go, In deep-cleft lanes a-gossip with the moon. But this was alien, and its frenzy stirred Our stoic trees to clamorous unrest, Pelting this sky with some barbaric word That seemed half battle-slogan and half jest. But even now it passes Finisterre; Now are its voices strident over Spain. Let us return: the land is quiet here, And over us the constellations wane. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HE RULETH NOT THROUGH HE RAIGNE OVER REALMES by THOMAS WYATT OLNEY HYMNS: 49. JOY AND PEACE IN BELIEVING by WILLIAM COWPER SONNETS TO LAURA IN LIFE: 156 by PETRARCH FORBIDDEN FRUIT by CHARLES COTTON ON THE BENEFIT RECEIVED BY MIS MAJESTY FROM SEA-BATHING by WILLIAM COWPER |