16 JUNE 2007, Page 26

Littlebredy

At the top of the hill the twisted thorns Were crouching out of the way of the wind That raced in over the miles of shivering furze.

The valley air Was sweet with the honey of yellow-beaked flowers And across the lake the house Stared at itself in the olive water.

What had been remembered By the folk intelligence of the path That chose that way of all ways through the trees?

Why had the dreaming ice In the slumbering glacier warmed toward this shape, Beyond all others, To hollow out its inclination?

Everything there knew why, However, The white-robed cricketers Had made their way down the valley To do their dance of stillness, To do their courtly dance of almost stillness, Dancing upon their graves before they died.