The Five Students

The sparrow dips in his wheel-rut bath,      The sun grows passionate-eyed,      And boils the dew to smoke by the paddock-path;      As strenuously we stride, -     Five of us; dark He, fair He, dark She, fair She, I,      All beating by.      The air is shaken, the high-road hot,      Shadowless swoons the day,      The greens are sobered and cattle at rest; but not      We on our urgent way, -     Four of us; fair She, dark She, fair He, I, are there,      But one - elsewhere.      Autumn moulds the hard fruit mellow,      And forward still we press      Through moors, briar-meshed plantations, clay-pits yellow,      As in the spring hours - yes,     Three of us: fair He, fair She, I, as heretofore,      But - fallen one more.      The leaf drops: earthworms draw it in      At night-time noiselessly,      The fingers of birch and beech are skeleton-thin,      And yet on the beat are we, -     Two of us; fair She, I. But no more left to go      The track we know.      Icicles tag the church-aisle leads,      The flag-rope gibbers hoarse,      The home-bound foot-folk wrap their snow-flaked heads,      Yet I still stalk the course, -     One of us . . . Dark and fair He, dark and fair She, gone:      The rest - anon.