Falling Asleep

 Voices moving about in the quiet house: 
Thud of feet and a muffled shutting of doors: 
Everyone yawning.
 Only the clocks are alert.
 

Out in the night there’s autumn-smelling gloom 
Crowded with whispering trees; across the park
A hollow cry of hounds like lonely bells: 
And I know that the clouds are moving across the moon; 
The low, red, rising moon.
 Now herons call 
And wrangle by their pool; and hooting owls 
Sail from the wood above pale stooks of oats.


Waiting for sleep, I drift from thoughts like these; 
And where to-day was dream-like, build my dreams.
 
Music .
.
.
 there was a bright white room below, 
And someone singing a song about a soldier, 
One hour, two hours ago: and soon the song
Will be ‘last night’: but now the beauty swings 
Across my brain, ghost of remembered chords 
Which still can make such radiance in my dream 
That I can watch the marching of my soldiers, 
And count their faces; faces; sunlit faces.


Falling asleep .
.
.
 the herons, and the hounds.
.
.
.
 
September in the darkness; and the world 
I’ve known; all fading past me into peace.

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