Kent In War

The pebbly brook is cold to-night,      Its water soft as air,     A clear, cold, crystal-bodied wind      Shadowless and bare,     Leaping and running in this world      Where dark-horned cattle stare:     Where dark-horned cattle stare, hoof-firm      On the dark pavements of the sky,     And trees are mummies swathed in sleep      And small dark hills crowd wearily;     Soft multitudes of snow-grey clouds      Without a sound march by.     Down at the bottom of the road      I smell the woody damp     Of that cold spirit in the grass,      And leave my hill-top camp -     Its long gun pointing in the sky -      And take the Moon for lamp.     I stop beside the bright cold glint      Of that thin spirit in the grass,     So gay it is, so innocent!      I watch its sparkling footsteps pass     Lightly from smooth round stone to stone,      Hid in the dew-hung grass.     My lamp shines in the globes of dew,      And leaps into that crystal wind     Running along the shaken grass      To each dark hole that it can find -     The crystal wind, the Moon my lamp,      Have vanished in a wood that's blind.     High lies my small, my shadowy camp,      Crowded about by small dark hills;     With sudden small white flowers the sky      Above the woods' dark greenness fills;     And hosts of dark-browed, muttering trees      In trance the white Moon stills.     I move among their tall grey forms,      A thin moon-glimmering, wandering Ghost,     Who takes his lantern through the world      In search of life that he has lost,     While watching by that long lean gun      Up on his small hill post.