The poem
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.