Sunset

There's green fire in the Easting, and red fire in the West, 
The North and South are coloured like the plumes on a dove's breast; 
The wind's down, but the aspens take yet no thought of rest. 

There's not a bird's nest in them, but endlessly they sway 
Throughout the windless twilight as through the windy day, 
Though the rain stays for whose coming the poplar leaves turned gray. 

The hill above us darkens with a crown of ash and oak. 
Its flanks are clothed with gorses, and upon its neck for yoke 
It wears the fallen elm-trees that the last thunder broke.

A gray stain to the southward tells of ships upon the sea: 
A cry from hidden coverts tells where the moor-hens be:
A white flash in the grayness — the owl has left her tree. 

The darkness narrows round us the lands that lay so wide — 
I cannot tell the ash-tree from the alder at her side;
Nor know the homeward way of these three roads that here divide, 
But for the lowing cows that come, slow-footed, down the ride.