Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch

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Title: The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch
Author: R. C. Lehmann
Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8433]?[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]?[This file was first posted on July 9, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-Latin-1
? START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VAGABOND AND OTHER POEMS ***
Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon,?Charles Bidwell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
THE VAGABOND AND OTHER POEMS
FROM PUNCH
BY R. C. LEHMANN
Author of "ANNI FUGACES", "CRUMBS OF PITY", and "LIGHT AND SHADE"
LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD?NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMXVIII
Printed in Great Britain by Tumbull & Spears, Edinburgh
NOTE?All but two of the pieces here printed appeared originally in Punch. My thanks are due to Messrs Bradbury, Agnew & Co., the Proprietors of Punch, for permitting me to reprint them here. "For Wilma" was first published in Blackwood's Magazine, and appears here by the courtesy of the Editor.?R. C. L.
CONTENTS
THE VAGABOND?SINGING WATER?FOR WILMA?CRAGWELL END?THE BIRD IN THE ROOM?KILLED IN ACTION?EPITAPH?TO FLIGHT-LIEUTENANT ROBINSON, V.C.?PAGAN FANCIES?ROBIN, THE SEA-BOY?THE BIRTHDAY?THE DANCE?PANSIES?THE DRAGON OF WINTER HILL?FLUFFY, A CAT?THE LEAN-TO SHED?THE CONTRACT?JOHN?THE SPARROW?GELERT?AVE, CAESAR!?SOO-TI?THE BATH?PETER, A PEKINESE PUPPY?THE DOGS' WELCOME?ODE TO JOHN BRADBURY?TEETH-SETTING?THE DEATH OF EUCLID?TO POSTUMUS IN OCTOBER?A RAMSHACKLE ROOM?THE LAST STRAW?THE OLD GREY MARE?AT PUTNEY?"A LITTLE BIT OF BLUE"?THE LAST COCK-PHEASANT?IN MEMORIAM
THE VAGABOND
It was deadly cold in Danbury town?One terrible night in mid November,?A night that the Danbury folk remember?For the sleety wind that hammered them down,?That chilled their faces and chapped their skin,?And froze their fingers and bit their feet,?And made them ice to the heart within,
And spattered and scattered?And shattered and battered?Their shivering bodies about the street;?And the fact is most of them didn't roam?In the face of the storm, but stayed at home;?While here and there a policeman, stamping?To keep himself warm or sedately tramping?Hither and thither, paced his beat;?Or peered where out of the blizzard's welter?Some wretched being had crept to shelter,?And now, drenched through by the sleet, a muddled?Blur of a man and his rags, lay huddled.
But one there was who didn't care,?Whatever the furious storm might dare,?A wonderful, hook-nosed bright-eyed fellow?In a thin brown cape and a cap of yellow?That perched on his dripping coal-black hair.?A red scarf set off his throat and bound him,?Crossing his breast, and, winding round him,
Flapped at his flank?In a red streak dank;?And his hose were red, with a purple sheen?From his tunic's blue, and his shoes were green.?He was most outlandishly patched together?With ribbons of silk and tags of leather,?And chains of silver and buttons of stone,?And knobs of amber and polished bone,?And a turquoise brooch and a collar of jade,?And a belt and a pouch of rich brocade,?And a gleaming dagger with inlaid blade?And jewelled handle of burnished gold?Rakishly stuck in the red scarf's fold--?A dress, in short, that might suit a wizard
On a calm warm day?In the month of May,?But was hardly fit for an autumn blizzard.
Whence had he come there? Who could say,?As he swung through Danbury town that day,?With a friendly light in his deep-set eyes,?And his free wild gait and his upright bearing,?And his air that nothing could well surprise,?So bright it was and so bold and daring??He might have troubled the slothful ease?Of the Great Mogul in a warlike fever;?He might have bled for the Maccabees,
Or risen, spurred?By the Prophet's word,?And swooped on the hosts of the unbeliever.
Whatever his birth and his nomenclature,?Something he seemed to have, some knowledge?That never was taught at school or college,?But was part of his very being's nature:?Some ingrained lore that wanderers show?As over the earth they come and go,?Though they hardly know what it is they know.
And so with his head upheld he walked,?And ever the rain drove down;?And now and again to himself he talked?In the streets of Danbury town.?And now and again he'd stop and troll?A stave of music that seemed to roll?From the inmost depths of his ardent soul;?But the wind took hold of the notes and tossed them?And