Round clump

Lonely this copse among the downs
where the great ridged long barrow lies:
outside, the warm bright harvest fields,
within, the chill dark mysteries

where all the air is damp with death,
and elder-stems are naked bones,
berries are blood-clots on the yews,
skull-white the cavernous flint-stones.

The kingdom of the ancient dead,
terrible and inviolate,
yet on the barrow's broken crest
lies a new tribute to the great

gods of the strange fierce other world:
the only life in this dead wood
a fresh-reaped sheaf shines palely gold,
earth's token of immortals' food.

The moon tonight will scarcely shine
down through these thick yew-branches spread—
in the black night beyond all years
the old kings will eat barley-bread.

12 October 1944