Witchcraft: New Style

The sun drew off at last his piercing fires.

Over the stale warm air, dull as a pond

And moveless in the grey quieted street,

Blue magic of a summer evening glowed.

The sky, that had been dazzling stone all day,

Hollowed in smooth hard brightness, now dissolved

To infinite soft depth, and smoulder'd down

Low as the roofs, dark burning blue, and soared

Clear to that winking drop of liquid silver,

The first exquisite star. Now the half-light

Tidied away the dusty litter parching

Among the cobbles, veiled in the colour of distance

Shabby slates and brickwork mouldering, turn'd

The hunchback houses into patient things

Resting; and golden windows now began.

A little brisk grey slattern of a woman,

Pattering along in her loose-heel'd clogs,

Pushed the brass-barr'd door of a public-house;

The spring went hard against her; hand and knee

Shoved their weak best. As the door poised ajar,

Hullabaloo of talking men burst out,

A pouring babble of inflamed palaver,

And overriding it and shouted down

High words, jeering or downright, broken like

Crests that leap and stumble in rushing water.

Just as the door went wide and she stepped in,

'She cannot do it!' one was bawling out:

A glaring hulk of flesh with a bull's voice.

He finger'd with his neckerchief, and stretched

His throat to ease the anger of dispute,

Then spat to put a full stop to the matter.