MIDSUMMER NIGHT 141 

 The last labourer left the inn and the 

 village slept. The walls of the cottages 

 gleamed white under the dark thatch as 

 the moonlight fell directly upon them. I 

 was alone with the sapling wheat and all 

 was still. 



I was alone with the wheat that I loved. 

 Moving over the field my feet were drenched 

 in an instant by the dew. Lying at full 

 length on the earth, I pressed my face 

 among the sweet wistfulness of stalks, 

 stained and glowing as with some lambent 

 fire, pale, mysterious. On each pale flame- 

 blade depended a small white light, a dew- 

 drop in which the light of the moon was 

 imprisoned. Each flag of wheat held the 

 beauty of pure water, and within the 

 sappy blades glowed the spirit of the earth 

 in the spectral silence a voice spoke of 

 its ancient lineage: of the slow horses that 

 had strained at the wooden plough through 

 the ages, scarring the glebe in long furrows 

 that must be sown with corn; race after 



