I
Never and never, my girl
riding far and near
In the land of the
hearthstone tales, and spelled asleep,
Fear or believe that the
wolf in a sheepwhite hood
Loping and bleating
roughly and blithely shall leap,
My
dear, my dear,
Out of a lair in the
flocked leaves in the dew dipped year
To eat your heart in the
house in the rosy wood.
Sleep, good, for ever,
slow and deep, spelled rare and wise,
My girl ranging the
night in the rose and shire
Of the hobnail tales: no
gooseherd or swine will turn
Into a homestall king or
hamlet of fire
And
prince of ice
To court the honeyed
heart from your side before sunrise
In a spinney of ringed
boys and ganders, spike and burn,
Nor the innocent lie in
the rooting dingle wooed
And staved, and riven
among plumes my rider weep.
From the broomed witch's
spume you are shielded by fern
And flower of country
sleep and the greenwood keep.
Lie
fast and soothed,
Safe be and smooth from
the bellows of the rushy brood.
Never, my girl, until
tolled to sleep by the stern
Bell believe or fear
that the rustic shade or spell
Shall harrow and snow
the blood while you ride wide and near,
For who unmanningly
haunts the mountain ravened eaves
Or skulks in the dell
moon but moonshine echoing clear
From
the starred well?
A hill touches an angel.
Out of a saint's cell
The nightbird lauds
through nunneries and domes of leaves
Her robin breasted tree,
three Marys in the rays.
Sanctum sanctorum the
animal eye of the wood
In the rain telling its
beads, and the gravest ghost
The owl at its knelling.
Fox and holt kneel before blood.
Now
the tales praise
The star rise at pasture
and nightlong the fables graze
On the lord's-table of
the bowing grass. Fear most
For ever of all not the
wolf in his baaing hood
Nor the tusked prince,
in the ruttish farm, at the rind
And mire of love, but
the Thief as meek as the dew.
The country is holy: O
bide in that country kind,
Know
the green good,
Under the prayer
wheeling moon in the rosy wood
Be shielded by chant and
flower and gay may you
Lie in grace. Sleep
spelled at rest in the lowly house
In the squirrel nimble
grove, under linen and thatch
And star: held and
blessed, though you scour the high four
Winds, from the dousing
shade and the roarer at the latch,
Cool
in your vows.
Yet out of the beaked,
web dark and the pouncing boughs
Be you sure the Thief
will seek a way sly and sure
And sly as snow and meek
as dew blown to the thorn,
This night and each vast
night until the stern bell talks
In the tower and tolls
to sleep over the stalls
Of the hearthstone tales
my own, lost love; and the soul walks
The
waters shorn.
This night and each
night since the falling star you were born,
Ever and ever he finds a
way, as the snow falls,
As the rain falls, hail
on the fleece, as the vale mist rides
Through the haygold
stalls, as the dew falls on the wind-
Milled dust of the apple
tree and the pounded islands
Of the morning leaves,
as the star falls, as the winged
Apple
seed glides,
And falls, and flowers
in the yawning wound at our sides,
As the world falls,
silent as the cyclone of silence.
II
Night and the reindeer
on the clouds above the haycocks
And the wings of the
great roc ribboned for the fair!
The leaping saga of
prayer! And high, there, on the hare-
Heeled
winds the rooks
Cawing from their black
bethels soaring, the holy books
Of birds! Among the
cocks like fire the red fox
Burning! Night and the
vein of birds in the winged, sloe wrist
Of the wood! Pastoral
beat of blood through the laced leaves!
The stream from the
priest black wristed spinney and sleeves
Of
thistling frost
Of the nightingale's din
and tale! The upgiven ghost
Of the dingle torn to
singing and the surpliced
Hill of cypresses! The
din and tale in the skimmed
Yard of the buttermilk
rain on the pail! The sermon
Of blood! The bird loud
vein! The saga from mermen
To
seraphim
Leaping! The gospel
rooks! All tell, this night, of him
Who comes as red as the
fox and sly as the heeled wind.
Illumination of music!
the lulled black-backed
Gull, on the wave with
sand in its eyes! And the foal moves
Through the shaken
greensward lake, silent, on moonshod hooves,
In
the winds' wakes.
Music of elements, that
a miracle makes!
Earth, air, water, fire,
singing into the white act,
The haygold haired, my
love asleep, and the rift blue
Eyed, in the haloed
house, in her rareness and hilly
High riding, held and
blessed and true, and so stilly
Lying
the sky
Might cross its planets,
the bell weep, night gather her eyes,
The Thief fall on the
dead like the willy nilly dew,
Only for the turning of
the earth in her holy
Heart! Slyly, slowly,
hearing the wound in her side go
Round the sun, he comes
to my love like the designed snow,
And
truly he
Flows to the strand of
flowers like the dew's ruly sea,
And surely he sails like
the ship shape clouds. Oh he
Comes designed to my
love to steal not her tide raking
Wound, nor her riding
high, nor her eyes, nor kindled hair,
But her faith that each
vast night and the saga of prayer
He
comes to take
Her faith that this last
night for his unsacred sake
He comes to leave her in
the lawless sun awaking
Naked and forsaken to
grieve he will not come.
Ever and ever by all
your vows believe and fear
My dear this night he
comes and night without end my dear
Since
you were born:
And you shall wake, from
country sleep, this dawn and each first dawn,
Your faith as deathless
as the outcry of the ruled sun.
Dylan Thomas takes my
breath away.
