When the Devil Drives

Under boughs between our tentative endearments how should
we hear
But with flushing pleasure drums distant over difficult country, 
                           Events not actual
                           In time's unlenient will?

Which we shall not avoid, though at a station's chance delay 
Lines branch to peace, iron up valleys to a hidden village; 
                           For we have friends to catch
                           And none leave coach.

Sharers of our own day, thought smiling of, but nothing known, 
What industries decline, what chances are of revolution,
                           What murders flash 
                           Under composed flesh.

Knowledge no need to us whose wrists enjoy the chafing leash, 
Can plunder high nests; who sheer off from old like gull from granite,
                           From their mind's constant sniffling, 
                           Their blood's dulled shuffling.

Who feebling, still have time to wonder at the well-shaped heads 
Conforming every day more closely to the best in albums:
                           Fathers in sons may track
                           Their voices trick.

But their ancestral curse, jumbled perhaps and put away, 
Baffled for years, at last in one repeats its potent pattern 
                           And blows fall more than once,
                           Although he wince:

Who was to moorland market town retired for work or love,
May creep to sumps, pile up against the door, crouching in cases, 
                           This anger falling
                           Opens, empties that filling.

Let each one share our pity, hard to withhold and hard to bear. 
None knows of the next day if it be less or more, the sorrow: 
                           Escaping cannot try;
                           Must wait though it destroy.