John Mouldy

I spied John Mouldy in his celler,

Deep down twenty steps of stone;

In the dusk he sat a-smiling

Smiling there all alone.

He read no book, he snuffed no candle;

The rats ran in, the rats ran out,

And far and near, the drip of water

Went whisp'ring about.

The dusk was still, with dew a-falling,

I saw the Dog-star bleak and grim,

I saw a slim brown rat of Norway

Creep over him.

I spied John Mouldy in his celler,

Deep down twenty steps of stone;

In the dusk he sat a-smiling

Smiling there all alone.

This poem taken from the book "People" in the Poems and Pictures series. Ed Dennis saunders / Vincent Oliver Pub Evans Brothers, London [page 16]