A visit to Sissinghurst

The heavy golden sunshine enriched the old brick 
with a kind of patina, and made the tower 
cast a long shadow across the grass,

like the finger of a gigantic sundial veering slowly with the sun.

Everything was hushed and drowsy and silent,

but for the coo of the white pigeons 
sitting alone together on the roof.

They climbed the seventy-six steps of her tower

and stood on the leaden flat,

leaning their elbows on the parapet,

and looking out in silence over the fields,

the woods, the hop gardens,

and the lake down in the hollow

from which a faint mist was rising.

Vita Sackville-West