LAMBOURN TOWN

The rain beat on me as I walked,

In the roadside it ran and muttered.

It seemed the rain to the wind talked

Of storm: in the wind the wild cloud fluttered.

Across the down, now bleak and loud,

I went and the rain ran with me.

How swift the rain, how low the cloud!

No heavenly comfort could I see,

Nor comfort of low beaming light

From any casement creeping out.

The swift rain on the patient night

Swept, and anon would great winds shout.

Rain, rain, nought else, until I turned

The thrusting shoulder of the down,

And through the mist of rain there burned

The few green lanterns of the town.

And in the rain the night was lit

With my love's eyes burning for me;

Her white face in the dark was sweet,

Her hands like moonflowers quiveringly

Fell upon mine, and each was dashed

With rain blown in from streaming eaves,

While overhead the broad flood plashed

Noisily on the broad plane leaves.

Within we heard the gurgle-glock

In the pipe, the tip-tap on the sill

Like the same ticking of the clock;

We heard the water-butt o'erspill,

The wind come blustering at the door,

The whipped white lilac thrash the wall;

The candle flame upon the floor

Crept between shadows magical....

In the black east a pallid ray

Rose high; and sweeping o'er the down

The slow increase of stormless day

Lit the wet roofs of Lambourn town.