---

Somewhere lost in the haze

The sun goes down in the cold,

And birds in this evil wood

return to home

return, and the home is there,

On the high twigs frozen and thin.

There is no more noise of them now,

And the long night sets in.

all the wonderful things

That I have seen in the wood,

I marvel most at the birds,

At their chirp and their quietude.

For a giant smites with his hammer

All day the tops of the hill,

Sometimes he rests at night,

Oftener he beats them still.

Spell--

And a dwarf with a grim black mane -----

Raps with repeated rage

All night in the valley below

On the wooden walls of his cage.

I met with Death in his country,

With his scythe and his hollow eye

Walking the roads of Belgium.

I looked and he passed by me side.

Since he passed me by in Plug Street,

In the wood of the evil name,

I shall not now lie with the heroes,

I shall not share their fame;

I shall never be as they are,

A name in the land of the Free,

Since I looked on Death in Flanders

And he did not look at me.

Lord Dunsany (1878-1957)