01.07.2007, 10:56
Evening in Germany
How each sharp hammer of the minster clock
Cuts off a point of time, until the bell,
Up-carolling to the clouds with silvery swell,
The sullen presage like a bird doth mock;
But the day fleets, and the shadow of the rock
Falls opposite to where at morn it fell;
The bees come home, each to her angular cell;
Up to his hostel flies the roosting cock.
Now creep the beggars, some with misery pined,
To dungeon-pits; some where the woodland yields
Small shelter, thinned for comfortable fires:
Some to lone huts such as the shepherd builds
Under a bank to shield him from the wind,
In an old tree set round with thorns and briars.
How each sharp hammer of the minster clock
Cuts off a point of time, until the bell,
Up-carolling to the clouds with silvery swell,
The sullen presage like a bird doth mock;
But the day fleets, and the shadow of the rock
Falls opposite to where at morn it fell;
The bees come home, each to her angular cell;
Up to his hostel flies the roosting cock.
Now creep the beggars, some with misery pined,
To dungeon-pits; some where the woodland yields
Small shelter, thinned for comfortable fires:
Some to lone huts such as the shepherd builds
Under a bank to shield him from the wind,
In an old tree set round with thorns and briars.