228 THE CHANGE 



The drone of a tramcar passing towards 

 Catford along the newly-made high road 

 a mile below the wood rose in pitch as it 

 went faster with its first burden of artisans 

 and factory hands. The stranger brooded, 

 thinking of that time before the field had 

 been built upon. And yet he was still a 

 youth, alone with me in the early hours of 

 the winter morning, standing in the long 

 grass at the eastern edge of the wood. 

 Almost immediately he went on : his voice 

 became wild with yearning. 



" Spring came again, with the larks 

 battling over the Seven Fields and the 

 wind anemones rising like wan-white stars 

 above the dead leaves. I fretted with 

 brooding why she withheld herself. I was 

 intensely poetical and equally egoistical. 

 The great artist rises above egoism, the 

 little one is killed by it, and becomes em- 

 bittered egoism narrows the view and 

 ruins happiness. But I could not help it 

 I was held in chains by the tyranny of my 



