The grass-gates and the hedge are between them;
That is a symbol.
Night has already come on.
(now explaining the thoughts of the man's spirit)
Love's thoughts are heaped high within him,
As high as the charm-sticks,
As high as the charm-sticks, once coloured,
Now fading, lie heaped in this cave.
And he knows of their fading. He says:
I lie a body, unknown to any other man,
Like old wood buried in moss.
It were a fit thing
That I should stop thinking the love-thoughts.
The charm-sticks fade and decay,
And yet,
The rumour of our love
Takes foot and moves through the world.
We had no meeting
But tears have, it seems, brought out a bright blossom
Upon the dyed tree of love.

SHITE
Tell me, could I have foreseen
Or known what a heap of my writings
Should lie at the end of her shaft-bench?

CHORUS
A hundred nights and more
Of twisting, encumbered sleep,
And now they make it a ballad,