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! 

  

  

       TOWN     

 LONDON Used to wear her lights splendidly, Flinging her shawl-fringe over the River, Tassels in abandon. And up in the sky A two-eyed clock, like an owl Solemnly used to approve, chime, chiming, Approval, goggle-eyed fowl. There are no gleams on the River, No goggling clock; No sound from St. Stephen's; No lamp-fringed frock. Instead, Darkness, and skin-wrapped Fleet, hurrying limbs, Soft-footed dead. London Original, wolf-wrapped In pelts of wolves, all her luminous Garments gone. London, with hair Like a forest darkness, like a marsh Of rushes, ere the Romans Broke in her lair. It is well That London, lair of sudden Male and female darknesses Has broken her spell. 

  

  

       AFTER THE OPERA     

 DOWN the stone stairs Girls with their large eyes wide with tragedy Lift looks of shocked and momentous emotion up at me. And I smile. Ladies Stepping like birds with their bright and pointed feet Peer anxiously forth, as if for a boat to carry them out of the wreckage, And among the wreck of the theatre crowd I stand and smile. They take tragedy so becomingly. Which pleases me. But when I meet the weary eyes The reddened aching eyes of the bar-man with thin arms, I am glad to go back to where I came from. 

  

  

       GOING BACK     

 THE NIGHT turns slowly round, Swift trains go by in a rush of light; Slow trains steal past. This train beats anxiously, outward bound. But I am not here. I am away, beyond the scope of this turning; There, where the pivot is, the axis Of all this gear. I, who sit in tears, I, whose heart is torn with parting; Who cannot bear to think back to the departure platform; My spirit hears Voices of men Sound of artillery, aeroplanes, presences, And 

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