January 1, 1931

Watching in three planes from a room overlooking the courtyard 
                          That year decaying,
Stub-end of year that smoulders to ash of winter, 
                          The last day dropping;
Lo, a dream met me in middle night, I saw in a vision 
Life pass as a gull, as a spy, as a dog-hated dustman: 
And heard a voice saying—"Subjects, Objects, all of you, 
                          Read of your losses."

Shaped me a Lent scene first, a bed, hard, surgical, 
                          And a wound hurting;
The hour in the night when Lawrence died and I came 
                          Round from the morphia.
A train went clanking over the bridges leaving the city; 
A sleep-walker pushed on groaning down the velvet passage; 
The night-nurse visited—“We shall not all sleep, dearie,'
                          She said, and left me.

Felt sap collecting anon in unlighted cylinders 
                          For birdward facing;
The flat snake moving again in the pit, the schoolboy 
                          From home migrating.
After a night of storm was a lawn in sunlight,
A colleague bending for measurements there at the rain-gauge, 
Gritting his teeth after breakfast, the Headmaster muttered 
                          "Call no man happy."

Came summer like a flood, did never greediest gardener 
                          Make blossoms flusher:
Sunday meant lakes for many, a browner body 
                          Beauty from burning:
Far out in the water two heads discussed the position,
Out of the reeds like a fowl jumped the undressed German, 
And Pretzel signalled from the sand dunes like a wooden madman
                          "Destroy this temple."

It did fall. The quick hare died to the hound's hot breathing, 
                          The Jewess fled Southwards;
The drunken Scotsman, regarding the moons hedge-rising, 
                          Shook and saluted:
And in cold Europe, in the middle of Autumn destruction, 
Maverick stood, his face grown lined with wincing 
In front of ignorance—"Tell the English," he shivered, 
                          "Man is a spirit."

What I saw further was general but in sorrow, 
                          Many together
Forgiving each other in the dark of the picture palaces 
                          But past forgiveness;
The pair walking out on the mole, getting ready to quarrel, 
The exile from superb Africa, employed in a laundry; 
Deserters, mechanics, conjurers, delicate martyrs, 
                          All self-regarders.

I saw the brain-track perfected, laid for conveying 
                          The fatal error,
Sending the body to islands or after its father, 
                          Cold with a razor:
One sniffed at a root to make him dream of a woman, 
One laid his hands on the heads of dear little pages; 
Neither in the bed nor on the arrête was there shown me 
                          One with power.

"Save me!" the voice commanded, but as I paused hesitant 
                          A troop rushed forward.
Granny in mittens, the Judge, the bucolic doctor,
                          And the suave archdeacon.
The captains grouped round the flagstaff shut up their glasses, 
Broke yelping over the gravel-as I stood a spectator, 
One tapped my shoulder and asked me "How did you fall, sir?” 
                          Whereat I awakened.

Roof-line sharpens, intense in the New Year morning; 
                          Far down in courtyard
Beggar addresses the earth on the state of East Europe: 
                          "Won't you speak louder?
Have you heard of someone swifter than Syrian horses? 
Has he thrown the bully of Corinth in the sanded circle? 
Has he crossed the Isthmus already? is he seeking brilliant 
                          Athens and us?"