They found you nigh the foot of Roman's Leap,
Deep-buried in the bracken's rustling gold,
Your arm beneath you bent, your brown face cold:
Yet all unheeding round you grazed your sheep.

They found you nigh the foot of Roman's Leap:
They laid you on a hurdle, bracken-strewn:
They bore you home beneath the waning moon,
With laboured breathing up the craggy steep.

They found you nigh the foot of Roman's Leap:
Their whispering shadows darkened in the door:
Their griding hobnails crossed the sanded floor
As in with them the whole night seemed to sweep.

They found you nigh the foot of Roman's Leap:
They laid you out upon the fourpost-bed,
Two candles at your feet, two at your head,
Salt on your breast your soul from harm to keep.

They found you nigh the foot of Roman's Leap,
Day glimmers wanly at the blinded pane:
Yet you will never wake at dawn again
And from my side in tender silence creep.

They found you nigh the foot of Roman's Leap,
Deep-buried in the bracken's rustling gold:
Dumb sorrow in my heart is frozen cold:
Unloose your clutch, O death, that I may weep!