Norfolk

How did the Devil come?

When first attack?

These Norfolk lanes recall lost innocence,

The years fall off and find me walking

Dragging a stick along the wooden

Down this same path, where, forty years ago,

My father strolled behind me, calm and slow.

I used to fill my hands with sorrel

And shower him with them from the tops of stiles,

I used to butt my head into his

To make him hurry down those languorous

Of ash and alder-shaded lanes, till

Our moorings and the masthead would appear.

There after supper lit by lantern

Warm in the cabin I could lie

And hear against the polished sides at

The lap lap lapping of the weedy Bure,

A whispering and watery Norfolk

Telling of all the moonlit reeds around.

How did the Devil come?

When first attack?

The church is just the same, though now I

Fowler of Louth restored it.

Time, bring

The rapturous ignorance of long ago,

The peace, before the dreadful daylight starts,

Of unkept promises and broken hearts.