Page:Marlborough and other poems, Sorley, 1919.djvu/40

 In greyness, and the beauty faded fast,

With all the many-coloured coat of day.

Then I looked up, and lo! the sunset sky

Had taken the beauty from the autumn earth.

Such colour, O such colour, could not die.

The trees stood black against such revelry

Of lemon-gold and purple and crimson dye.

And even as the trees, so I

Stood still and worshipped, though by evening's birth

I should have capped the hills and seen the King.

The King? The King?

I must be miles away from my journey's end;

The others must be now nearing

The summit, glad. By now they wend

Their way far, far, ahead, no doubt.

I wonder if they've reached the end.

If they have, I have not heard them shout.

1 December 1913 22