Page:A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919.djvu/334

 334

HERE'S a waterfall I'm leaving

Running down the rocks in foam,

There's a pool for which I'm grieving

Near the water-ouzel's home,

And it's there that I'd be lying

With the heather close at hand

And the curlews faintly crying

'Mid the wastes of Cumberland.

While the midnight watch is winging

Thoughts of other days arise,

I can hear the river singing

Like the saints in Paradise;

I can see the water winking

Like the merry eyes of Pan,

And the slow half-pounder sinking

By the bridge's granite span.

Ah! to win them back and clamber

Braced anew with winds I love,

From the river's stainless amber

To the morning mist above,

See through cloud-rifts rent asunder,

Like a painted scroll unfurled,

Ridge and hollow rolling under

To the fringes of the world.

Now the weary guard are sleeping,

Now the great propellers churn,

Now the harbour lights are creeping

Into emptiness astern,

While the sentry wakes and watches

Plunging triangles of light

Where the water leaps and catches

At our escort in the night.