Chanctonbury Sunset

 

It all seems so unlike what one expects,
Lectured by nocturnes and the songs of birds:
I seek the moon (tradition so directs)
And lift my face for the sweet rain of words;
I bend my concentration on a flower
Or raise a questing eyebrow to the clouds
That, like fantastic ice-carved cities tower
In the twilight, blue remote . . . But Maya shrouds
My spirit even in this place of power,
On such an evening, primrose-frilled, the bright
World-flower closing its dark, star-petalled bloom
Above this hallowed geomantic height -
Despite it all my heart's a small, dim room
Where chagrin frames one pane of pure delight.