The sparrow dips in his wheel-rut bath,

         The sun grows passionate-eyed,

   And boils the dew to smoke by the paddock-path;

         As strenuously we stride,—

Five of us; dark He, fair He, dark She, fair She, I,

            All beating by.

      The air is shaken, the high-road hot,

         Shadowless swoons the day,

   The greens are sobered and cattle at rest; but not

         We on our urgent way,—

Four of us; fair She, dark She, fair He, I, are there,

            But one—elsewhere.

      Autumn moulds the hard fruit mellow,

         And forward still we press

   Through moors, briar-meshed plantations, clay-pits yellow,

         As in the spring hours—yes,

Three of us: fair He, fair She, I, as heretofore,

            But—fallen one more.

      The leaf drops: earthworms draw it in

         At night-time noiselessly,

   The fingers of birch and beech are skeleton-thin,

            And yet on the beat are we,—

Two of us; fair She, I.  But no more left to go

               The track we know.

      Icicles tag the church-aisle leads,

         The flag-rope gibbers hoarse,

   The home-bound foot-folk wrap their snow-flaked heads,

            Yet I still stalk the course,—

One of us . . . Dark and fair He, dark and fair She, gone:

               The rest—anon.