…So now tonight, when the bearded barley drinks
The moon, and the corn is stippled with night-gold,
The bent blades swaying, are praying now to Venus
And Mercury to avert the blows of Mars
And spare their seedlings the ravages of wars;
So, too, I pray, preserve this house that I
May gather the fruits of so many years dreaming,
Researches into memory’s observant eye,
Achieve some signal thing before darkness falls
On these loved walls and shuttered windows, on the sea,
The distant headland, the ripened corn and me.
A.L. Rowse