Last Hours

The cool of an oak's unchequered shade     Falls on me as I lie in deep grass     Which rushes upward, blade beyond blade,     While higher the darting grass-flowers pass     Piercing the blue with their crocketed spires     And waving flags, and the ragged fires     Of the sorrel's cresset - a green, brave town     Vegetable, new in renown.     Over the tree's edge, as over a mountain     Surges the white of the moon,     A cloud comes up like the surge of a fountain,     Pressing round and low at first, but soon     Heaving and piling a round white dome.     How lovely it is to be at home     Like an insect in the grass     Letting life pass.     There's a scent of clover crept through my hair     From the full resource of some purple dome     Where that lumbering bee, who can hardly bear     His burden above me, never has clomb.     But not even the scent of insouciant flowers     Makes pause the hours.     Down the valley roars a townward train.     I hear it through the grass     Dragging the links of my shortening chain     Southwards, alas!