Oh yes.
But flint and clay and childbirth were too real
For this cloud castle. I had forgot the wind.
55 Pray do not let me get on to the wind.
You would not understand about the wind.
It is my subject, and compared with me
Those who have always lived on the firm ground
Are quite unreal in this matter of the wind.
60 There were whole days and nights when the wind and I
Between us shared the world, and the wind ruled
And I obeyed it and forgot the mist.
My past and the past of the world were in the wind.
Now you will say that though you understand
65 And feel for me, and so on, you yourself
Would find it different. You are all like that
If once you stand here free from wind and mist:
I might as well be talking to wind and mist.
You would believe the house-agent’s young man
70 Who gives no heed to anything I say.
Good morning. But one word. I want to admit
That I would try the house once more, if I could;
As I should like to try being young again.’
‘He has robbed two clubs. The judge at Salisbury
Can’t give him more than he undoubtedly
Deserves. The scoundrel! Look at his photograph!
A lady-killer! Hanging’s too good by half
5 For such as he.’ So said the stranger, one
With crimes yet undiscovered or undone.
But at the inn the Gypsy dame began:
‘Now he was what I call a gentleman.
He went along with Carrie, and when she
10 Had a baby he paid up so readily
His half a crown. Just like him. A crown’d have been
More like him. For I never knew him mean.
Oh! but he was such a nice gentleman. Oh!
Last time we met he said if me and Joe
15 Was anywhere near we must be sure and call.
He put his arms around our Amos all
As if he were his own son. I pray God
Save him from justice! Nicer man never trod.’
At hawthorn-time in Wiltshire travelling
In search of something chance would never bring,
An old man’s face, by life and weather cut
And coloured, – rough, brown, sweet as any nut, –
5 A land face, sea-blue-eyed, – hung in my mind
When I had left him many a mile behind.
All he said was: ‘Nobody can’t stop ’ee. It’s
A footpath, right enough. You see those bits
Of mounds – that’s where they opened up the barrows
10 Sixty 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, and Bruce:
15 And whether Alton, not Manningford, it was,
My memory could not decide, because
There was both Alton Barnes and Alton Priors.
All had their churches, graveyards, farms, and byres,
Lurking to one side up the paths and lanes,
20 Seldom well seen except by aeroplanes;
And when bells rang, or pigs squealed, or cocks crowed,
Then only heard. Ages ago the road
Approached. The people stood and looked and turned,
Nor asked it to come nearer, nor yet learned
25 To move out there and dwell in all men’s dust.
And yet withal they shot the weathercock, just
Because ’twas he crowed out of tune, they said:
So now the copper weathercock is dead.
If they had reaped their dandelions and sold
30 Them fairly, they could have afforded gold.
Many years passed, and I went back again
Among those villages, and looked for men
Who might have known my ancient. He himself
Had long been dead or laid upon the shelf,
35 I thought. One man I asked about him roared
At my description: ‘’Tis old Bottlesford
He 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 till
40 A girl proposed Walker of Walker’s Hill,
‘Old Adam Walker. Adam’s Point you’ll see
Marked on the maps.’
‘That was her roguery,’
The next man said. He was a squire’s son
Who loved wild bird and beast, and dog and gun
45 For 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, or
Like Bottlesford, that you want, but far more
He sounds like one I saw when I was a child.
50 I could almost swear to him. The man was wild
And 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 uses
But once a life-time when he loves or muses?
55 He is English as this gate, these flowers, this mire.
And when at eight years old Lob-lie-by-the-fire
Came 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,
60 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 Leeds
One April called all cuckoo-flowers Milkmaids.
65 From him old herbal Gerard learnt, as a boy,
To name wild clematis the Traveller’s-joy.
Our blackbirds sang no English till his ear
Told him they called his Jan Toy “Pretty dear”.
(She was Jan Toy the Lucky, who, having lost
70 A shilling, and found a penny loaf, rejoiced.)
For reasons of his own to him the wren
Is 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 lack
75 Their name was his care. He too could explain
Totteridge 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.
80 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
85 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,
90 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,
95 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.
100 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,
105 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.
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