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Time and Place

Autumn Afternoon

page 28

Autumn Afternoon

On a small hillock, contented, contented,
Beside a low valley, I took my repose,
One day in mid-May, wearing on into winter,
While the calm afternoon drew down to its close.

And I saw that the harvest was over, was over,
The scything and binding of corn and of hay;
And the latter-day harvest of swarthy potatoes,
The spaded, dark harvest was now under way.

As in a small mirror, a minishing mirror,
An old, curving mirror that hung in our home,
I saw the band moving, and bending, and lifting,
As they filled up the sacks and turned up the loam.

The lorry attending, the long motor-lorry,
Loading up, seemed to swim on invisible keel;
No sound of its labours came over the furrows,
No grind of an engine, no round of a wheel;

No sound from the distance, so clear so pellucid,
So near seemed the bevy of men and of boys,
With eye and with ear so soothed and deluded,
I fancied a realm that had never known noise!

The sheep in their pasture, half lost in the tussock,
On the hillside above me or far on the plains
(Like a stage army that seems to be passing,
And seems to be moving, but constant remains)

Fretted the herbage, and nibbled the grasses,
Intent on their pasture, so stolid, so tame;
All tame and all tallied, all followed the foremost,
And rippled the landscape, but kept it the same.
page 29 And as the light lowered, unsullied and glowing,
It threw a last spell before it should pale,
A magical mesh of golden and coralline
Mist over hill and gully and dale.

It enveloped the vale; the long lilac shadows
Fell soft as the folds of an old, faded gown;
All silken the tussock, all velvet the fallow,
As the lustre grew brighter, before it died down.

It seemed as if Autumn, red-cloaked for her journey,
Autumn, kind Autumn, had paused for a while;
Had paused at her parting, remembered the valley,
Looked over her shoulder, and and thrown us a smile.

It lit up the boughs, it illumined the branches
Of a cluster of trees, so placed and displayed—
A Lombardy poplar, and two aspen poplars,
And a dark purple willow embraced in their shade—

So placed and disposed, as if for an artist,
As if for a master to trace and portray
The design of their limbs, the spring of their arches,
In glowing repose at the close of the day.

All leafless the willows, all naked the columnar
Lombardy poplar, but aspens wore, high
On their whispering crests, a glittering circlet,
Still yellow, bright yellow, against the blue sky.

Then the clear light faded, so slowly, so sadly,
As dear Autumn’s smile passed into a sigh;
The fields were forsaken, the sere poplars shuddered,
As the flotten leaves muttered ‘So now we must die!’

page 30

And coming that evening, cold evening, late evening,
And coming to compline, dismissing the day;
And conning life’s lesson, to fathom the meaning,
The exquisite pleasures adorning the way,

New every morning, the various treasure
Measured again, took up all my mind;
The tokens of kindness, the cup in the cornsack,
The corn out of Egypt, the blessing assigned,

The shining surprises, the rose in the desert,
Oh, naught but the mercy, the turning again,
Naught but remembrance of kindness and mercy
Supplying fresh manna the soul to sustain,

New wine distilled, yea, filling the cup full,
Secret bread, hid manna, my thoughts did employ—
And how a red sallow, and two sorts of poplar,
Upsprung in a valley, had wrought me such joy!

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