Lob by Edward Thomas

AT hawthorn-time in Wiltshire travellingIn search of something chance would never bring,An old man's face, by life and weather cutAnd coloured,--rough, brown, sweet as any nut,--A land face, sea-blue-eyed,--hung in my mindWhen I had left him many a mile behind.All he said was: "Nobody can't stop 'ee. It'sA footpath, right enough. You see those bitsOf mounds--that's where they opened up the barrowsSixty years since, while I was scaring sparrows.They thought as there was something to find there,But couldn't find it, by digging, anywhere."

To turn back then and seek him, where was the use?There were three Manningfords,--Abbots, Bohun, andBruce:And whether Alton, not Manningford, it was,My memory could not decide, becauseThere was both Alton Barnes and Alton Priors.All had their churches, graveyards, farms, and byres,Lurking to one side up the paths and lanes,Seldom well seen except by aeroplanes;And when bells rang, or pigs squealed, or cocks crowed,Then only heard. Ages ago the roadApproached. The people stood and looked and turned,Nor asked it to come nearer, nor yet learnedTo move out there and dwell in all men's dust.And yet withal they shot the weathercock, justBecause 'twas he crowed out of tune, they said:So now the copper weathercock is dead.If they had reaped their dandelions and soldThem fairly, they could have afforded gold.

Many years passed, and I went back againAmong those villages, and looked for menWho might have known my ancient. He himselfHad long been dead or laid upon the shelf,I thought. One man I asked about him roaredAt my description: "'Tis old BottlesfordHe means, Bill." But another said: "Of course,It was Jack Button up at the White Horse.He's dead, sir, these three years." This lasted tillA girl proposed Walker of Walker's Hill,"Old Adam Walker. Adam's Point you'll seeMarked on the maps."

"That was her roguery,"The next man said. He was a squire's sonWho loved wild bird and beast, and dog and gunFor killing them. He had loved them from his birth,One with another, as he loved the earth."The man may be like Button, or Walker, orLike Bottlesford, that you want, but far moreHe sounds like one I saw when I was a child.I could almost swear to him. The man was wildAnd wandered. His home was where he was free.Everybody has met one such man as he.Does he keep clear old paths that no one usesBut once a life-time when he loves or muses?He is English as this gate, these flowers, this mire.And when at eight years old Lob-lie-by-the-fireCame in my books, this was the man I saw.He has been in England as long as dove and daw,Calling the wild cherry tree the merry tree,The rose campion Bridget-in-her-bravery;And in a tender mood he, as I guess,Christened one flower Love-in-idleness,And while he walked from Exeter to LeedsOne April called all cuckoo-flowers Milkmaids.From him old herbal Gerard learnt, as a boy,To name wild clematis the Traveller's-joy.Our blackbirds sang no English till his earTold him they called his Jan Toy 'Pretty dear.'(She was Jan Toy the Lucky, who, having lostA shilling, and found a penny loaf, rejoiced.)For reasons of his own to him the wrenIs Jenny Pooter. Before all other men'Twas he first called the Hog's Back the Hog's Back.That Mother Dunch's Buttocks should not lackTheir name was his care. He too could explainTotteridge and Totterdown and Juggler's Lane:He knows, if anyone. Why Tumbling Bay,Inland in Kent, is called so, he might say.

"But little he says compared with what he does.If ever a sage troubles him he will buzzLike a beehive to conclude the tedious fray:And the sage, who knows all languages, runs away.Yet Lob has thirteen hundred names for a fool,And though he never could spare time for schoolTo unteach what the fox so well expressed,On biting the cock's head off,--Quietness is best,--He can talk quite as well as anyoneAfter his thinking is forgot and done.He first of all told someone else's wife,For a farthing she'd skin a flint and spoil a knifeWorth sixpence skinning it. She heard him speak:'She had a face as long as a wet week'Said he, telling the tale in after years.With blue smock and with gold rings in his ears,Sometimes he is a pedlar, not too poorTo keep his wit. This is tall Tom that boreThe logs in, and with Shakespeare in the hallOnce talked, when icicles hung by the wall.As Herne the Hunter he has known hard times.On sleepless nights he made up weather rhymesWhich others spoilt. And, Hob being then his name,He kept the hog that thought the butcher cameTo bring his breakfast 'You thought wrong,' said Hob.When there were kings in Kent this very Lob,Whose sheep grew fat and he himself grew merry,Wedded the king's daughter of Canterbury;For he alone, unlike squire, lord, and king,Watched a night by her without slumbering;He kept both waking. When he was but a ladHe won a rich man's heiress, deaf, dumb, and sad,By rousing her to laugh at him. He carriedHis donkey on his back. So they were married.And while he was a little cobbler's boyHe tricked the giant coming to destroyShrewsbury by flood. 'And how far is it yet?'The giant asked in passing. 'I forget;But see these shoes I've worn out on the roadAnd we're not there yet.' He emptied out his loadOf shoes for mending. The giant let fall from his spadeThe earth for damming Severn, and thus madeThe Wrekin hill; and little Ercall hillRose where the giant scraped his boots. While stillSo young, our Jack was chief of Gotham's sages.But long before he could have been wise, agesEarlier than this, while he grew thick and strongAnd ate his bacon, or, at times, sang a songAnd merely smelt it, as Jack the giant-killerHe made a name. He too ground up the miller,The Yorkshireman who ground men's bones for flour.

"Do you believe Jack dead before his hour?Or that his name is Walker, or Bottlesford,Or Button, a mere clown, or squire, or lord?The man you saw,--Lob-lie-by-the-fire, Jack Cade,Jack Smith, Jack Moon, poor Jack of every trade,Young Jack, or old Jack, or Jack What-d'ye-call,Jack-in-the-hedge, or Robin-run-by-the-wall,Robin Hood, Ragged Robin, lazy Bob,One of the lords of No Man's Land, good Lob,--Although he was seen dying at Waterloo,Hastings, Agincourt, and Sedgemoor too,--Lives yet. He never will admit he is deadTill millers cease to grind men's bones for bread,Not till our weathercock crows once againAnd I remove my house out of the laneOn to the road." With this he disappearedIn hazel and thorn tangled with old-man's-beard.But one glimpse of his back, as there he stood,Choosing his way, proved him of old Jack's bloodYoung Jack perhaps, and now a WiltshiremanAs he has oft been since his days began.