Moon shining in silence of the night The heaven being full of stars I was reading my book in a ruin By a sour candle, without roast meat or music Strong drink or a shield from the air Blowing in the crazed window, and I felt Moonlight on my head, clear after three days' rain. I washed in cold water; it was orange, channelled down bogs Dipped between cresses. The bats flew through my room where I slept safely. Sheep stared at me when I woke. Behind me waves of darkness lay, the plague Of mice, plague of beetles
Crawling out of the spines of books, Plague shadowing pale faces with clay The disease of the moon gone astray. In the desert I relaxed, amazed As the mosaic beasts on the chapel floor When Cromwell had departed, and they saw The sky growing through a hole in the roof. Sheepdogs embraced me; the gra**hopper Returned with lark and bee. I looked down between ledges of high thorn and saw The hare, absorbed, sitting still In the middle of the track; I heard Again the chirp in the stream running.