Explore "The Return" by Walter de la Mare on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The last light of sunset lay in the west; and a sullen wrack of cloud was mounting into the windless sky when Lawford entered the country graveyard again by its dark weatherworn lychgate. The old stone church with its square tower stood amid trees, its eastern window faintly aglow with crimson and purple. He could hear a steady, rather nasal voice through its open lattices. But the stooping stones and the cypresses were out of sight of its porch. He would not be seen down there. He paused a moment, however; his hat was drawn down over his eyes; he was shivering. Far over the harvest fields showed a growing pallor in the sky. He would have the moon to go home by.
"Home! "-these trees, this tongueless companionship, this heavy winelike air, this soundless turf-these in some obscure desolate fashion seemed far rather really home. His eyes wandered towards the fading crimson. And with that on his right hand he began softly, almost on tiptoe, descending the hill. It seemed to him that the steady eyes of the dead were watching him in his slow progress. The air was echoing with little faint, clear calls. He turned and snapped his fingers at a robin that was stalking him with its stony twittering from bush to bush.