AT STONEHENGE.(Poem)

 
   Alone, I approach the roped-off part 
   Where forty centuries are standing up. 
   The stones are pocked, wind-bitten, mournful 
   As baggage left behind in a retreat, 
   As emblems of some piety or hope 
   Finally abandoned on this hill. 
 
   Do I myself belong to an ethos 
   Which is dying? Am I a link joined 
   With the last Celt and the last Roman, 
   The last of any sort who stood like this 
   In lengthening shadow on this ground 
   Before disappearing in his turn? 
 
   Yet surely when other epochs fell, 
   Men trusted a fabric would persist, 
   Believed a deeper rhythm underneath 
   Would still go on, still recognisable 
   --The plough in the soil, the babe at the breast, 
   The seasons of honour, love and death. 
 
   ...