Poems | Page 6

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 buzz?Like 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 school?To unteach what the fox so well expressed,?On biting the cock's head off,--Quietness is best,--?He can talk quite as well as anyone?After 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 knife?Worth 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 poor?To keep his wit. This is tall Tom that bore?The logs in, and with Shakespeare in the hall?Once talked, when icicles hung by the wall.?As Herne the Hunter he has known hard times.?On sleepless nights he made up weather rhymes?Which others spoilt. And, Hob being then his name,?He kept the hog that thought the butcher came?To 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 lad?He won a rich man's heiress, deaf, dumb, and sad,?By rousing her to laugh at him. He carried?His donkey on his back. So they were married.?And while he was a little cobbler's boy?He tricked the giant coming to destroy?Shrewsbury 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 road?And we're not there yet.' He emptied out his load?Of shoes for mending. The giant let fall from his spade?The earth for damming Severn, and thus made?The Wrekin hill; and little Ercall hill?Rose where the giant scraped his boots. While still?So young, our Jack was chief of Gotham's sages.?But long before he could have been wise, ages?Earlier than this, while he grew thick and strong?And ate his bacon, or, at times, sang a song?And merely smelt it, as Jack the giant-killer?He 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 dead?Till millers cease to grind men's bones for bread,?Not till our weathercock crows once again?And I remove my house out of the lane?On to the road." With this he disappeared?In 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 blood?Young Jack perhaps, and now a Wiltshireman?As he has oft been since his days began.
BRIGHT CLOUDS
BRIGHT clouds of may?Shade half the pond.?Beyond,?All but one bay?Of emerald?Tall reeds?Like criss-cross bayonets?Where a bird once called,?Lies bright as the sun.?No one heeds.?The light wind frets?And drifts the scum?Of may-blossom.?Till the moorhen calls?Again?Naught's to be done?By birds or men.?Still the may falls.
THE CLOUDS THAT ARE SO LIGHT
THE clouds that are so light,?Beautiful, swift and bright,?Cast shadows on field and park?Of the earth that is so dark,
And even so now, light one!?Beautiful, swift and bright one!?You let fall on a heart that was dark,?Unillumined, a deeper mark.
But clouds would have, without earth?To shadow, far less worth:?Away from your shadow on me?Your beauty less would be,
And if it still be treasured?An age hence, it shall be measured?By this small dark spot?Without which it were not.
SOME EYES CONDEMN
SOME eyes condemn the earth they gaze upon:?Some wait patiently till they know far more?Than earth can tell them: some laugh at the whole?As folly of another's making: one?I knew that laughed because he saw, from core?To rind, not one thing worth the laugh his soul?Had ready at waking: some eyes have begun?With laughing; some stand startled at the door.
Others, too, I have seen rest, question, roll,?Dance, shoot. And many I have loved watching?Some?I could not take my eyes from till they turned?And loving died. I had not found my goal.?But thinking of your eyes, dear, I become?Dumb: for they flamed, and it was me they burned.
MAY 23
THERE never was a finer day,?And never will be while May is May,--?The third, and not the last of its kind;?But though fair and clear