THE PLOUGHMAN

At twenty past, old Baldock strode

His ploughman's straddle down the road.

An old man with a gaunt, burnt face;

His eyes rapt back on some far place,

Like some starved, half-mad saint in bliss

In God's world through the rags of this.

He leaned upon a stake of ash

Cut from a sapling: many a gash

Was in his old, full-skirted coat.

The twisted muscles in his throat

Moved, as he swallowed, like taut cord.

His oaken face was seamed and gored.

He halted by the inn and stared

On that far bliss, that place prepared

Beyond his eyes, beyond his mind.

Then Thomas Copp, of Cowfoot's Wynd

Drove up; and stopped to take a glass.

“I hope they'll gallop on my grass,”

He said, “My little girl does sing

To see the red coats galloping.

It's good for grass, too, to be trodden

Except they poach it, where it's sodden.”

Then Billy Waldrist, from the Lynn,

With Jockey Hill, from Pitts, came in

And had a sip of gin and stout

To help the jockey's sweatings out.

“Rare day for scent,” the jockey said.

A pony, like a feather bed

On four short sticks, took place aside.

The little girl who rode astride

Watched everything with eyes that glowed

With glory in the horse she rode.

At half-past ten, some lads on foot

Came to be beaters to a shoot

Of rabbits at the Warren Hill.

Rough sticks they had, and Hob and Jill,

Their ferrets, in a bag, and netting.

They talked of dinner-beer and betting;

And jeered at those who stood around.

They rolled their dogs upon the ground

And teased them: “Rats,” they cried; “go fetch.”

“Go seek, good Roxer;‘ z bite, good betch.

What dinner-beer'll they give us, lad?

Sex quarts the lot last year we had.

They'd ought to give us seven this.

Seek, Susan; what a betch it is.”