Lambourn Town

A poem by John Frederick Freeman

The rain beat on me as I walked,
In the roadside it ran and muttered.
It seemed the rain to the wind talked
Of storm: in the wind the wild cloud fluttered.

Across the down, now bleak and loud,
I went and the rain ran with me.
How swift the rain, how low the cloud!
No heavenly comfort could I see,

Nor comfort of low beaming light
From any casement creeping out.
The swift rain on the patient night
Swept, and anon would great winds shout.

Rain, rain, nought else, until I turned
The thrusting shoulder of the down,
And through the mist of rain there burned
The few green lanterns of the town.

And in the rain the night was lit
With my love's eyes burning for me;
Her white face in the dark was sweet,
Her hands like moonflowers quiveringly

Fell upon mine, and each was dashed
With rain blown in from streaming eaves,
While overhead the broad flood plashed
Noisily on the broad plane leaves.

Within we heard the gurgle-glock
In the pipe, the tip-tap on the sill
Like the same ticking of the clock;
We heard the water-butt o'erspill,

The wind come blustering at the door,
The whipped white lilac thrash the wall;
The candle flame upon the floor
Crept between shadows magical....

In the black east a pallid ray
Rose high; and sweeping o'er the down
The slow increase of stormless day
Lit the wet roofs of Lambourn town.