But once I went through the lanes, over the sharp Tilt of the little bridges; past the forge, And heard the clang of anvil and iron, And saw the founting sparks in the dusky forge, And men outside with horses, gossiping. So I came through that April England, moist And green in its lush fields between the willows, Foaming with cherry in the woods, and pale With clouds of lady's-smock along the hedge, Until I came to a gate and left the road For the gentle fields that enticed me, by the farms, Wandering through the embroidered fields, each one So like its fellow; wandered through the gaps, Past the mild cattle knee-deep in the brooks, And wandered drowsing as the meadows drowsed Under the pale wide heaven and slow clouds. And then I came to a field where the springing grass Was dulled by the hanging cups of fritillaries, Sullen and foreign-looking, the snaky flower, Scarfed in dull purple, like Egyptian girls Camping among the furze, staining the waste With foreign colour, sulky—dark and quaint, Dangerous too, as a girl might sidle up, An Egyptian girl, with an ancient snaring spell, Throwing a net, soft round the limbs and heart, Captivity soft and abhorrent, a close-meshed net, —See the square web on the murrey flesh of the flower— Holding her captive close with her bare brown arms. Close to her little breast beneath the silk, A gipsy Judith, witch of a ragged tent, And I sank from the English field of fritillaries Before it should be too late, before I forgot The cherry white in the woods, and the curdled clouds, And the lapwings crying free above the plough. |