Falling Asleep
Voices moving about in the quiet house: Thud of feet and a muffled shutting of doors: Everyone yawning.
Only the clocks are alert. Out in the night there’s autumn-smelling gloom Crowded with whispering trees; across the parkA hollow cry of hounds like lonely bells: And I know that the clouds are moving across the moon; The low, red, rising moon.
Now herons call And wrangle by their pool; and hooting owls Sail from the wood above pale stooks of oats. Waiting for sleep,
I drift from thoughts like these; And where to-day was dream-like, build my dreams. Music… there was a bright white room below, And someone singing a song about a soldier, One hour, two hours ago: and soon the
Will be ‘last night’: but now the beauty swings Across my brain, ghost of remembered chords Which still can make such radiance in my dream That I can watch the marching of my soldiers, And count their faces; faces; sunlit faces. Falling asleep… the herons, and the hounds…. September in the darkness; and the world I’ve known; all fading past me into peace.
Siegfried Sassoon
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