Some of you may know, others perhaps can guess
    How it is to walk all night through summer rain
(Thin rain that shrouds a beneficent full moon),
    To circle a mountain and then limp home again.

The experience varies with a traveller's age
    And bodily strength, and strength of the love affair
That hurries him out of doors in steady drizzle,
    With neither jacket nor hat, and holds him there.

Still, let us concede some common elements:
    Wild-fire that, until midnight, burns his feet;
And surging rankly up, strong on the palate,
    Scents of July, imprisoned by long heat.

Add: the sub-human, black tree-silhouettes
    Against a featureless pale pall of sky;
Unseen, gurgling water; the bulk and menace
    Of entranced houses; a wraith wandering by.

Milestones, each one witness of a new mood –
    Anger, desperation, grief, regret;
Her too-familiar face that whirls and totters
    In memory, never willing to stay set.

Whoever makes the desired turning point,
    Which means another fifteen miles to go,
Learns more from dawn than love, so far, has taught him;
    Especially the false dawn, when cocks first crow.

Those last few miles are easy: being assured
    Of the fact, why should he fabricate fresh lies?
His house looms up; the eaves drip drowsily;
    The windows blaze to a resolute sunrise.