Quiet and very wise he seemed, With skull-like face, bald head that gleamed; Through spectacles his eyes looked kind.

He wore a pencil tucked behind His ear. And never he mistakes The wildest signs the doctor makes Prescribing drugs. Brown paper, string, He will not use for any thing, But all in neat white parcels packs And sticks them up with sealing-wax.

Miss Thompson bowed and blushed, and then Undoubting bought of Mr. Wren, Being free from modern scepticism, A bottle for her rheumatism; Also some peppermints to take In case of wind; an oval cake Of scented soap; a penny square Of pungent naphthaline to scare The moth. And after Wren had wrapped And sealed the lot, Miss Thompson clapped Them in beside the fish and shoes; 'Good day,' she says, and off she goes.

Is Led away Beelike Miss Thompson, whither next?

to the Pleasure Outside, you pause awhile, perplext, of the Town, Your bearings lost. Then all comes back

Such as Groceries And round she wheels, hot on the track and Millinery, Of Giles the grocer, and from there To Emilie the milliner, There to be tempted by the sight Of hats and blouses fiercely bright.

(O guard Miss Thompson, Powers that Be, From Crudeness and Vulgarity.)

And other Still on from shop to shop she goes Allurements With sharp bird's-eye, enquiring nose, Prying and peering, entering some, Oblivious of the thought of home.

The town brimmed up with deep-blue haze, But still she stayed to flit and gaze, Her eyes ablur with rapturous sights, Her small soul full of small delights, Empty her purse, her basket filled.

But at length The traffic in the town was stilled.

is Convinced The clock struck six. Men thronged the inns.

of Indiscretion. Dear, dear, she should be home long since.

And Returns Then as she climbed the misty downs Home. The lamps were lighted in the town's Small streets. She saw them star by star Multiplying from afar; Till, mapped beneath her, she could trace Each street, and the wide square market-place Sunk deeper and deeper as she went Higher up the steep ascent.

And all that soul-uplifting stir Step by step fell back from her, The glory gone, the blossoming Shrivelled, and she, a small, frail thing, Carrying her laden basket. Till Darkness and silence of the hill Received her in their restful care And stars came dropping through the air.

But loudly, sweetly sang the slippers In the basket with the kippers; And loud and sweet the answering thrills From her lone heart on the hills.

EDMUND BLUNDEN

THE POOR MAN'S PIG

Already fallen plum-bloom stars the green And apple-boughs as knarred as old toads' backs Wear their small roses ere a rose is seen; The building thrush watches old Job who stacks The bright-peeled osiers on the sunny fence, The pent sow grunts to hear him stumping by, And tries to push the bolt and scamper thence, But her ringed snout still keeps her to the sty.

Then out he lets her run; away she snorts In bundling gallop for the cottage door, With hungry hubbub begging crusts and orts, Then like the whirlwind b.u.mping round once more; Nuzzling the dog, making the pullets run, And sulky as a child when her play's done.

ALMSWOMEN

At Quincey's moat the squandering village ends, And there in the almshouse dwell the dearest friends Of all the village, two old dames that cling As close as any trueloves in the spring.

Long, long ago they pa.s.sed threescore-and-ten, And in this doll's house lived together then; All things they have in common, being so poor, And their one fear, Death's shadow at the door.

Each sundown makes them mournful, each sunrise Brings back the brightness in their failing eyes.

How happy go the rich fair-weather days When on the roadside folk stare in amaze At such a honeycomb of fruit and flowers As mellows round their threshold; what long hours They gloat upon their steepling hollyhocks, Bee's balsams, feathery southernwood, and stocks, Fiery dragon's-mouths, great mallow leaves For salves, and lemon-plants in bushy sheaves, s.h.a.gged Esau's-hands with five green finger-tips.

Such old sweet names are ever on their lips.

As pleased as little children where these grow In cobbled pattens and worn gowns they go, Proud of their wisdom when on gooseberry shoots They stuck eggsh.e.l.ls to fright from coming fruits The brisk-billed rascals; pausing still to see Their neighbour owls saunter from tree to tree, Or in the hushing half-light mouse the lane Long-winged and lordly.

But when those hours wane, Indoors they ponder, scared by the harsh storm Whose pelting saracens on the window swarm, And listen for the mail to clatter past And church clock's deep bay withering on the blast; They feed the fire that flings a freakish light On pictured kings and queens grotesquely bright, Platters and pitchers, faded calendars And graceful hour-gla.s.s trim with lavenders.

Many a time they kiss and cry, and pray That both be summoned in the self-same day, And wiseman linnet tinkling in his cage End too with them the friendship of old age, And all together leave their treasured room Some bell-like evening when the may's in bloom.

PERCH-FISHING

On the far hill the cloud of thunder grew And sunlight blurred below; but sultry blue Burned yet on the valley water where it h.o.a.rds Behind the miller's elmen floodgate boards, And there the wasps, that lodge them ill-concealed In the vole's empty house, still drove afield To plunder touchwood from old crippled trees And build their young ones their hutched nurseries; Still creaked the gra.s.shoppers' rasping unison Nor had the whisper through the tansies run Nor weather-wisest bird gone home.

How then Should wry eels in the pebbled shallows ken Lightning coming? troubled up they stole To the deep-shadowed sullen water-hole, Among whose warty snags the quaint perch lair.

As cunning stole the boy to angle there, m.u.f.fling least tread, with no noise balancing through The hangdog alder-boughs his bright bamboo.

Down plumbed the shuttled ledger, and the quill On the quicksilver water lay dead still.

A sharp s.n.a.t.c.h, swirling to-fro of the line, He's lost, he's won, with splash and scuffling shine Past the low-lapping brandy-flowers drawn in, The ogling hunchback perch with needled fin.

And there beside him one as large as he, Following his hooked mate, careless who shall see Or what befall him, close and closer yet-- The startled boy might take him in his net That folds the other.

Slow, while on the clay, The other flounces, slow he sinks away.

What agony usurps that watery brain For comradeship of twenty summers slain, For such delights below the flashing weir And up the sluice-cut, playing buccaneer Among the minnows; lolling in hot sun When bathing vagabonds had drest and done; Rootling in salty flannel-weed for meal And river shrimps, when hushed the trundling wheel; Snapping the dapping moth, and with new wonder Prowling through old drowned barges falling asunder.

And O a thousand things the whole year through They did together, never more to do.

THE GIANT PUFFBALL

From what sad star I know not, but I found Myself new-born below the coppice rail, No bigger than the dewdrops and as round, In a soft sward, no cattle might a.s.sail.

And so I gathered mightiness and grew With this one dream kindling in me, that I Should never cease from conquering light and dew Till my white splendour touched the trembling sky.

A century of blue and stilly light Bowed down before me, the dew came again, The moon my sibyl worshipped through the night, The sun returned and long abode; but then

Hoa.r.s.e drooping darkness hung me with a shroud And switched at me with shrivelled leaves in scorn.

Red morning stole beneath a grinning cloud, And suddenly clambering over dike and thorn

A half-moon host of churls with flags and sticks Hallooed and hurtled up the partridge brood, And Death clapped hands from all the echoing thicks, And trampling envy spied me where I stood;

Who haled me tired and quaking, hid me by, And came again after an age of cold, And hung me in the prison-house adry From the great crossbeam. Here defiled and old

I perish through unnumbered hours, I swoon, Hacked with harsh knives to staunch a child's torn hand; And all my hopes must with my body soon Be but as crouching dust and wind-blown sand.

THE CHILD'S GRAVE