Around the Mountain

Some of you may know, others perhaps can guess
How it is to walk all night through summer rain
(Thin rain that shrouds a beneficent full moon),
To circle a mountain, and then limp home again.

The experience varies with a traveller’s age
And bodily strength, and strength of the love affair
That harries him out of doors in steady drizzle,
With neither jacket nor hat, and holds him there.

Still, let us concede some common elements:
Wild-fire that, until midnight, burns his feet;
And surging rankly up, strong on the palate,
Scents of July, imprisoned by long heat.

Add: the sub-human, black tree-silhouettes
Against a featureless pale pall of sky;
Unseen, gurgling water; the bulk and menace
Of entranced houses; a wraith wandering by.

Milestones, each one witness of a new mood –
Anger, desperation, grief, regret;
Her too-familiar face that whirls and totters
In memory, never willing to stay set.

Whoever makes the desired turning-point,
Which means another fifteen miles to go,
Learns more from dawn than love, so far, has taught him:
Especially the false dawn, when cocks first crow.

Those last few miles are easy: being assured
Of the truth, why should he fabricate fresh lies?
His house looms up; the eaves drip drowsily;
The windows blaze to a resolute sunrise.