Norfolk

How did the Devil come? When first attack?

These Norfolk lanes recall lost innocence,

The years fall off and find me walking back

Dragging a stick along the wooden fence

Down this same path, where, forty years ago,

My father strolled behind me, calm and slow.

I used to fill my hands with sorrel seeds

And shower him with them from the tops of stiles,

I used to butt my head into his tweeds

To make him hurry down those languorous miles

Of ash and alder-shaded lanes, till here

Our moorings and the masthead would appear.

There after supper lit by lantern light

Warm in the cabin I could lie secure

And hear against the polished sides at night

The lap lap lapping of the weedy Bure,

A whispering and watery Norfolk sound

Telling of all the moonlit reeds around.

How did the Devil come? When first attack?

The church is just the same, though now I know

Fowler of Louth restored it. Time, bring back

The rapturous ignorance of long ago,

The peace, before the dreadful daylight starts,

Of unkept promises and broken hearts.