November

Lyrics

The month of the drowned dog. After long rain the land Was sodden as the bed of an ancient lake. Treed with iron and was bird less. In the sunk lane The ditch – a seep silent all summer – Made brown foam with a big voice: that, and my boots On the lanes scrubbed stones, in the gulleyed leaves Against the hill's hanging silence; Mist silvering the droplets on the bare thorns Slower than the change of daylight. In a let of the ditch a tramp was bundled asleep. Face tucked down into beard, drawn in Under his hair like a hedgehog's. I took him for dead, But his stillness separated from the death From the rotting grass and the ground. The wind chilled, And a fresh comfort tightened through him, Each hand stuffed deeper into the other sleeve. His ankles, bound with sacking and hairy hand, Rubbed each other, resettling. The wind hardened; A puff shook a glittering from the thorns, And again the rains' dragging grey columns Smudged the farms. In a moment The fields were jumping and smoking; the thorns Quivered, riddled with the glassy verticals. I stayed on under the welding cold Watching the tramp's face glisten and the drops on his coat Slash and darken. I thought what strong trust Slept in him- as the trickling furrows slept, And the thorn roots in their grip on darkness; And the buried stones taking the weight of winter; The hill where the hare crouched with clenched teeth. Rain plastered the land till it was shinning Like hammered lead, and I ran, and in the rushing wood Shuttered by a black oak leaned. The Keeper's gibbet had owls and hawks By the neck, weasels, a gang of cats, crows: Some stiff, weightless, twirled like dry bark bits In the drilling rain. some still had their shape, Had their pride with it; hung, chins on chests, Patient to outwait these worst days that beat Their crowns bare and dripped from their feet.