Hither and thither, lingering still,

Like smoke of sacrifice—

Forgotten fires, forgotten rites,

Forgotten agonies.

The heaven-blue flowers bloom below

About the grim stone’s foot,

The sweet hare-bells that always grow

Where nought else e’er takes root.

Of all that stony wilderness,

The only fruit.

A presence in the moonlit night

Unseen doth ever brood,

As though it kept in silent sight

The stones rough-hewn and rude;

The shrine of which it was the god,—

The moorland solitude.

And never shall that vigil tire,

And never the great spell pass,

Where the Druids built their altar-fire

Over the dew-drenched grass,

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