I sleep but my heart waketh

Here in the winding coil of waterways,

Apart among the trees, where no feet pass,

And little woodland rabbits on the grass

Sit lightly cropping through the Autumn days,

The troubling world, with all its weary moods,

Is far away outside the circling woods.

A golden rain of leaf is on the beech

And red and gold the maze of branches glow

To drop their wealth upon the grass below,

As golden silence falls on golden speech;

In long, wet flats, wherein the heron feeds,

A golden sky is mirrored through the reeds.

No voices come to still that other voice

Which breathes along the labyrinth of trees

To tell the tired soul to dwell at ease

Among the best-loved visions of its choice:

‘Sleep in these groves,’ it says, ‘by spirits trod,

While thine heart waketh to the sound of God.’