Man and Dog
"'TWILL take some getting." "Sir, I think 'twillso."The old man stared up at the mistletoeThat hung too high in the poplar's crest for plunderOf any climber, though not for kissing under:Then he went on against the north-east wind--Straight but lame, leaning on a staff new-skinned,Carrying a brolly, flag-basket, and old coat,--Towards Alton, ten miles off. And he had notDone less from Chilgrove where he pulled up docks.'Twere best, if he had had "a money-box,"To have waited there till the sheep cleared a fieldFor what a half-week's flint-picking would yield.His mind was running on the work he had doneSince he left Christchurch in the New Forest, oneSpring in the 'seventies,--navvying on dock andlineFrom Southampton to Newcastle-on-Tyne,--In 'seventy-four a year of soldieringWith the Berkshires,--hoeing and harvestingIn half the shires where corn and couch will grow.His sons, three sons, were fighting, but the hoeAnd reap-hook he liked, or anything to do withtrees.He fell once from a poplar tall as these:The Flying Man they called him in hospital."If I flew now, to another world I'd fall."He laughed and whistled to the small brown bitchWith spots of blue that hunted in the ditch.Her foxy Welsh grandfather must have pairedBeneath him. He kept sheep in Wales and scaredStrangers, I will warrant, with his pearl eyeAnd trick of shrinking off as he were shy,Then following close in silence for--for what?"No rabbit, never fear, she ever got,Yet always hunts. To-day she nearly had one:She would and she wouldn't. 'Twas like that. Thebad one!She's not much use, but still she's company,Though I'm not. She goes everywhere with me.So Alton I must reach to-night somehow:I'll get no shakedown with that bedfellowFrom farmers. Many a man sleeps worse to-nightThan I shall." "In the trenches." "Yes, that'sright.But they'll be out of that--I hope they be--This weather, marching after the enemy.""And so I hope. Good luck." And there I nodded"Good-night. You keep straight on." Stiffly heplodded;And at his heels the crisp leaves scurried fast,And the leaf-coloured robin watched. Theypassed,The robin till next day, the man for good,Together in the twilight of the wood.
Sign in to like, rate and collect poems, and keep track of what you've read.