She passes through the village street,
As evening shadows fall.
The full moon climbs the winter sky,
The trees are bare and tall.
What is the secret that they share,
Shadow and moon and tree,
And little laughing breeze that makes
The dead leaves dance with glee?
They know their kin. The owl cries
His greeting out to her.
Now the last house and garden’s past,
The Down’s ridge rises bare.
A climbing moonlit path she sees,
That was a trodden road
Ere conquering Rome or Norman proud
O’er Downland ever strode.
It leads to where, beneath the turf,
The outlines she can trace
Of barrow and of sacred ring,
That mark the Old Gods’ place.
The moon rides high. The years roll back,
Are with her garments shed.
Naked she dances out the ring
First wrought by hands long dead.
The blood leans wild within her veins,
As swifter spins the dance,
Her wide eyes fixed upon the moon,
Her senses rant in trance.
And though no feet of flesh and blood
Walked with her to that ground,
She knows she does not dance alone
That magic circle’s round.

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