WILFRID WILSON GIBSON 
 
Class 
 
 pi 
 
 Book : 
 
 
 Copyright^? 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT; 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
 ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 
 
 LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
 
 TORONTO 
 
BORDERLANDS AND 
 THOROUGHFARES 
 
 BY 
 WILFRID WILSON GIBSON 
 
 AUTHOR OF " DAILY BREAD," "FIRES," ETC. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1914 
 
 All rights reserved 
 

 COPTBIOHT, 1914, 
 
 By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1914. 
 
 SE* 29 1314 
 
 ©CU379723 
 
TO MY WIFE 
 
 M .. . * 
 
So long had I travelled the lonely road, 
 Though, now and again, a wayfaring friend 
 Walked shoulder to shoulder, and lightened the 
 
 load, 
 I often would think to myself as I strode, 
 No comrade will journey with you to the end. 
 
 And it seemed to me, as the days went past, 
 And I gossiped with cronies, or brooded alone, 
 By wayside fires, that my fortune was cast 
 To sojourn by other men's hearths to the last, 
 And never to come to my own hearthstone. 
 
 The lonely road no longer I roam. 
 We met, and were one in the heart's desire. 
 Together we came, through the wintry gloam, 
 To the little old house by the cross-ways, home; 
 And crossed the threshold, and kindled the fire. 
 
 Vll 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 BORDERLANDS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Queen's Crags 1 
 
 Bloodybush Edge 41 
 
 Hoops 100 
 
 THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Solway Ford 133 
 
 A Catch for Singing 140 
 
 Geraniums 142 
 
 The Whisperers 145 
 
 Mabel 147 
 
 The Vixen 150 
 
 The Lodging House 154 
 
 The Ice 156 
 
 Woolgathering 157 
 
 The Tram 158 
 
 On the Embankment 160 
 
 The Dancers 162 
 
 The Wind 163 
 
 [ix] 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Vindictive Staircase, or The Reward 
 
 of Industry 164 
 
 Ragamuffins 169 
 
 The Alarum 171 
 
 In a Restaurant 172 
 
 The Greeting 173 
 
 Wheels 174 
 
 Prometheus 181 
 
 Night . . 182 
 
 On Hampstead Heath 184 
 
 A Vision in a Tea-shop 185 
 
 Lines Addressed to the Spectre of an 
 
 Elderly Gentleman, etc 186 
 
 The Dreadnought 188 
 
 Sight 190 
 
 The Gorse 191 
 
 [x] 
 
BORDERLANDS 
 
THE QUEEN'S CRAGS 
 
 SCENE : The Queen's Crags, a fantastic group of 
 rocks and boulders on the fells. Michael 
 Crozier, a young hind, lies in the evening 
 glow at the foot of the tallest crag, with a far- 
 away look in his eyes. Presently George 
 Dodd, an old hind, enters and stops on 
 seeing Michael. 
 
 George 
 
 Of all the lazy louts! 
 
 It's here, then, that you moon away the 
 
 evenings, 
 Stretched like a collie, basking in the sun, 
 Your noble self for company! 
 At your age, Michael, lad, 
 Fid have thought shame to find myself alone, 
 A night like this: 
 
 And such a lass as Peggie, lonesome, too. 
 
 [1] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 I wasted little time, when I was young; 
 
 And lost no Summer evenings by myself. 
 
 I always was a lad among the lasses, 
 
 And not a moony, moping gowk like you. 
 
 No sooner was I through, 
 
 Than I was washed and out. 
 
 Sunlight, moonlight, starlight, dark, 
 
 I never missed the screeching of the owls, 
 
 Nor listened to it lonesome. 
 
 But you, I've never seen you with a lass: 
 
 Though Peggie Haliburton, she . . . 
 
 Lad, take your pleasure, while you're young, 
 
 And Summer nights be fine. 
 
 Though youth and Summer nights seem long — ■ 
 
 Long enough to last for ever, 
 
 For ever and a day, 
 
 Before you've looked about a bit, 
 
 Old age and Winter are upon you. 
 
THE QUEEN'S CRAGS 
 
 To-day you're lithe and lusty, 
 
 And to-morrow, 
 
 A grizzled, pithless, aching bag-of-bones. 
 
 And Peggie Haliburton, too, 
 
 The lass was made for love and Summer nights : 
 
 Yet she's out walking with herself, 
 
 And no one by to see her but the peewits, 
 
 Or, maybe, a cock grouse or so: 
 
 A bonnie young thing wasting. 
 
 {He pauses, looking at Michael, who pays little 
 heed, but still lies with a far-away look in his 
 eyes.) 
 
 But, maybe, Michael, you're like me, 
 
 And cannot 'bide red hair? 
 
 I never liked a red-haired wench, 
 
 If there was any other by. 
 
 Red . . . it's the colour of the fox and 
 
 kestrel, 
 
 [3] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 And stoat and weasel, and such thieves and 
 
 vermin. 
 And, as for stock, if I could have my way, 
 I shouldn't have a red beast on the farm. 
 Fid never let a chestnut stallion whinny 
 Within a mile of Skarlindyke. 
 Fid sell all chestnut colts and fillies: 
 The red bull, too, should go: 
 And no red heifer should come nigh the 
 
 byres. 
 
 Fid have all black, coal-black: 
 
 Black stallions and black mares: 
 
 Black bulls, black stirks and heifers: 
 
 All black, save tups and ewes: 
 
 I'm somehow not so partial to black sheep. 
 
 But, in this world, we cannot all be farmers, 
 
 And lords of all creation. 
 
 Still, even hinds may have their fancies: 
 
 [4] 
 
THE QUEEN'S CRAGS 
 
 And you and I, lad, cannot 'bide red hair: 
 
 And so, red Peggy walks alone. 
 
 Ay! and it seems that hinds can hold their 
 
 tongues, 
 At least, the youngsters can; 
 For my old tongue keeps wagging, 
 And wags to little purpose seemingly. 
 It must have lost its sting; 
 Or, Peggy's not in favour. 
 
 (A pause.) 
 
 Well, Mister Mum, you've chosen a snug 
 
 corner 
 To stretch your lazy bones in. 
 
 (Sitting down by Michael, with his back against 
 the rock.) 
 
 I think I'll bear you company awhile, 
 If you can call a hedgehog company, 
 
 [5] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Tight-curled, and prickles bristling! 
 
 Still, though you mayn't be over-lively, 
 
 You're livelier than Myself. 
 
 I find him but glum company — 
 
 A grumpy, sulky beggar, 
 
 Who keeps on telling me I'm getting old, 
 
 And 'minding me of happiness gone by. 
 
 Myself and I were never fellows: 
 
 But ill-yoked at the best of times, 
 
 We seldom pulled together: 
 
 And, Lord! the times that we've upset the 
 
 cart! 
 So you must serve to keep the peace between 
 
 us, 
 By listening to my chatter. 
 I'm always happiest, talking, 
 For then I needn't listen to Myself. 
 Though I, when I was your age, Michael, 
 
 [6] 
 
THE QUEEN'S CRAGS 
 
 I should have scorned an old man's company, 
 While any lass . . . 
 And on Midsummer Eve! 
 
 (He pauses again: then resumes, pointing to a pil- 
 lared rock, standing apart from the others.) 
 
 So, yon's the tooth, chipped out of the 
 
 Queen's comb, 
 When Arthur pitched a rock at her, 
 While she was combing out her yellow hair: 
 And he, at his own Crags, a mile away! 
 It must have been a spanker of a comb, 
 To bear so brave a tooth! 
 I wonder what she'd said, to make him pitch 
 
 it . . . 
 Though likely she'd said nothing, 
 But just sat combing out her yellow hair, 
 And combing, combing, combing. 
 
 [7] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 A woman with a devil in her tongue, 
 
 When she plays mum, is far more aggravat- 
 ing. 
 
 Sometimes, when Susan sits and combs her 
 hair, 
 
 At night, like Arthur's Queen, 
 
 And combs, and combs, 
 
 Till I'm half -mad with watching from the bed, 
 
 I only stop Myself, — 
 
 The surly chap who wants the light out, — 
 
 Just in the nick of time 
 
 To loose the pillow from his clutch. 
 
 King Arthur must have been a handsome lad, 
 
 To chuck a pebble that size near a mile. 
 
 But, there were giants in those days: 
 
 And he . . . 
 
 Michael 
 A lie! 
 
 [8] 
 
THE QUEEN'S CRAGS 
 
 George 
 
 A lie? Of course, it's all a lie: 
 
 But it's a brave lie, Michael! 
 
 I doubt if there was ever King or Queen, 
 
 In these outlandish parts. 
 
 Michael 
 
 There was a Queen, 
 
 Though she was not a giant. 
 
 She was no bigger than . . . 
 
 Than you, or me . . . 
 
 Or Peggy . . . she was nearer Peggy's height. 
 
 George 
 
 You seem to know a deal about her, Michael. 
 Just Peggy's height? 
 And red-haired, too, I'll warrant? 
 You've found your tongue: 
 
 [9] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 And got it pat: 
 
 And all the gospel truth! 
 
 But, how d'you come by so much truth, I 
 
 wonder? 
 Scarcely by honest means, I doubt. 
 And how d'you know . . . 
 
 Michael 
 Because I've seen her. 
 
 George 
 Who? 
 
 Michael 
 The Queen. 
 
 George 
 
 You've seen the Queen? 
 
 Well, that's a brave one, Michael! 
 
 Myself can sometimes tell a little one; 
 
 [10] 
 
THE QUEEN'S CRAGS 
 
 But he was ever but a craven liar. 
 
 His were but cheepy bantams, barely hatched : 
 
 While yours, why, it's a strutting cock, and 
 
 crowing, 
 Comb pricked, and hackles quivering! 
 There's nothing like a big, bold, brazen lie 
 To warm the blood . . . 
 
 Michael 
 
 I'm telling truth. 
 I've seen her twice. 
 
 George 
 
 Nay! stop, before you spoil it all. 
 A lie, blown out too big, will burst, 
 
 Michael 
 It is no lie . . . 
 
 I saw the Queen, herself. 
 
 mi 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 George 
 You saw her . . . where? 
 
 Michael 
 
 I saw her here. 
 
 George 
 
 Here? In the Crags? 
 
 I trust she's not here now: 
 
 And listening down behind the rock. 
 
 Lord! if she'd heard Myself about the comb- 
 ing! 
 
 But Queens should be above eavesdropping; 
 
 And know the luck of listeners. 
 
 Though, how d'you know her, lad, for Ar- 
 thur's Queen? 
 
 Did she sing out: 
 
 "Hi! lad, I'm Arthur's Queen!" 
 
 [12] 
 
THE QUEEN'S CRAGS 
 
 Michael 
 
 She wore a crown . . . 
 A golden crown . . . 
 
 George 
 
 I saw a Queen once, with a golden crown; 
 
 And sitting on a golden throne, 
 
 Set high upon a monster golden ball, 
 
 Drawn in a golden chariot through the streets 
 
 By four-and-twenty little piebald ponies, 
 
 At Hexham, on a fairday, long ago . . . 
 
 Ay, long ago, in my young days, 
 
 When circuses were circuses. 
 
 They made a brave procession through the 
 
 town, 
 To draw the folk in after them . . . 
 Though outside shows are usually the brav- 
 est . . . 
 
 [131 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 But, not that time . . . 
 
 She was a Queen, a black-eyed, gypsy 
 
 Queen . . . 
 Black eyes that sparked . . . 
 And tilted chin . . . 
 You never saw . . . 
 
 Michael 
 
 Mine was no circus-queen. 
 
 I saw her first, when I was but a boy, 
 
 Six years ago, to-day . . . Midsummer 
 
 Eve . . . 
 I'd spent the whole day, playing round the 
 
 Crags 
 At Kings and castles, 
 Crowning or killing, 
 Or conquering myself, 
 
 Or putting black-faced bands 
 
 [14] 
 
THE QUEEN'S CRAGS 
 
 Of robber-sheep to rout; 
 
 Or seeking to take, unawares, 
 
 Some traitor stoat or weasel 
 
 That spied on my dominions. 
 
 When, ere I knew, 
 
 The sky was black, 
 
 And broke in flame, 
 
 And burst in thunder . . . 
 
 And rain, such rain . . . 
 
 Lightning, flash on flash . . . 
 
 Thunder, brattle after brattle . . . 
 
 Rain and rain . . . 
 
 You never saw such rain — 
 
 One pelting, crashing, teeming, drenching 
 
 downpour. 
 Soaked to the skin, in no time, 
 And scared out of my senses, 
 
 I crept into a hole among the rocks, 
 
 [15 1 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 A hole I'd never spied before, 
 
 No bigger than a fox's earth. 
 
 I had to wriggle on my belly, 
 
 To squeeze myself in, head first; 
 
 And half-expecting, every moment, 
 
 To feel a vixen's teeth, 
 
 Though more I feared the lightning at my 
 
 heels. 
 When, all at once, my arms were free: 
 And, lifting up my head, I found 
 I'd almost crawled into a chamber, 
 A big square chamber in the rock, 
 That I had ne'er heard tell of — 
 Four blue and shiny walls, that soared 
 Sheer to the sky — a still and starry sky, 
 Though, in the world without, black storm 
 
 was raging. 
 But, I'd no eyes for stars, 
 
 r 161 
 
THE QUEEN'S CRAGS 
 
 Nor even wits to wonder at the quiet. 
 
 My eyes were on the Queen, 
 
 Who sat beside a hearth of burning peats, 
 
 Right in the middle of the chamber; 
 
 A golden crown upon her golden head; 
 
 And she was spinning golden wool, 
 
 That flickered in the firelight, 
 
 Until it seemed that she was spinning flame, 
 
 Or her own fire-bright hair. 
 
 George 
 
 Red hair! And she'd red hair . . . 
 Then, you had only snoozed; 
 And dreamt of Peggy. 
 I saw my queen by daylight. 
 
 Michael 
 Peggy! 
 
 I tell you, 'twas the Queen. 
 
 [17] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 I saw her, plainly as I see yon rabbit; 
 She wore a furry cloak of weasel skins, 
 Or something like, 
 
 Though round the neck 'twas white — 
 White as yon rabbit's scut . . . 
 For it was mortal cold in that stone cham- 
 ber. 
 
 George 
 Was anybody with her? 
 
 Michael 
 
 I only saw the Queen, 
 
 And her, but for a moment. 
 
 She lifted up her eyes; 
 
 And I was frightened . . . 
 
 And wriggled backwards like an adder, 
 
 Till I was in the storm again. 
 
 [18 1 
 
THE QUEEN'S CRAGS 
 
 And then, I scuttled home — 
 
 A rabbit to its warren — 
 
 Across the splashy heather: 
 
 The lightning, playing round my heels, 
 
 The thunder, rattling round my head, 
 
 Though it was not the lightning or the 
 thunder 
 
 That scared me now . . . 
 
 I'd not a thought for them . . . 
 
 My heart was flying from that quiet cham- 
 ber 
 
 That stone-cold chamber, roofed with quiet 
 stars . . . 
 
 And from the eyes . . . 
 
 The eyes I had not seen. 
 
 George 
 
 And where's this stony chamber, then? 
 
 [191 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Michael 
 
 I never found the way to it again, 
 Though I've ransacked the Crags for it, 
 Since I grew big, and bolder. 
 
 George 
 
 A vixen in her den, 
 
 For she'd be red enough. 
 
 Yet, you'ld have felt her teeth for certain! 
 
 It must have been a dream. 
 
 Michael 
 
 I might have thought so, too, 
 Had I not seen the Queen, again. 
 
 George 
 Again? 
 
 I saw my Queen, again, too. 
 
 But what was your Queen's name? 
 
 [201 
 
THE QUEEN'S CRAGS 
 
 Michael 
 Queen Guinevere. 
 
 George 
 
 Mine had a braver name. 
 They called her, Donna Bella di Braganza, 
 Castilian Queen of the Equestrian World. 
 I spelled it out upon the rainbow bills 
 The clown, who wagged the tail of the pro- 
 cession, 
 Was scattering from his donkey-cart. 
 I saw my Queen again . . . 
 My gypsy Queen! 
 
 My black-haired, black-eyed gypsy . . . 
 You, and your red-haired Queens! 
 I'ld give a world of red-haired Guineveres, 
 To see those gypsy eyes again . . . 
 
 (A pause.) 
 [211 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 I smell the sawdust now . . . and or- 
 anges . . . 
 
 'Twas in the tent . . . 
 
 She'd doffed her robes and crown . . . 
 
 I knew her by the flashing of her eyes, 
 
 Tripping nimbly into the ring, 
 
 So brave in yellow silk, skin-fitting silk, 
 
 Yellow as dandelions, 
 
 And sprinkled all with spangles; 
 
 And yellow ribbons in her hair, 
 
 Her jet-black hair that hung about her shoul- 
 ders. 
 
 I see her tripping now into the ring, 
 
 With flashing eyes and teeth, 
 
 Clean-limbed, and mettlesome as the coal- 
 black mare, 
 
 Coal-black from mane to fetlocks, 
 
 That pawed and champed to greet her . . . 
 
 [22] 
 
THE QUEEN'S CRAGS 
 
 And there's naught bonnier than a bonnie 
 mare . . . 
 
 She clapped its glossy neck: 
 
 It nuzzled her: 
 
 Then ere I knew, 
 
 She'd lighted on its flanks, 
 
 Nimble and springy as a thistle-down: 
 
 And they were racing round the ring to- 
 gether, 
 
 She, standing tip-toe, 
 
 And with ne'er a rein, 
 
 A straw between her teeth, 
 
 Her flashing teeth . . . 
 
 And tilted chin . . . 
 
 And flashing eyes . . . 
 
 Her beautiful long hair, as black and silky, 
 
 As black and silky as the mare's long mane, 
 
 Was streaming out behind . . . 
 
 [23] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 And ribbons streaming . . . 
 Spangles sparkling . . . 
 Sawdust flying, 
 Whips, a-cracking . . . 
 Music, playing . . . 
 And now, she sprang 
 Through flaming hoops, 
 And my heart, through the fire with her, 
 And lighted on the steamy flanks: 
 And on, and on, 
 And round, and round the ring, 
 Till I was dazzled dizzy, 
 And out of breath, but watching her. 
 And what, with crack of whips . . . 
 Thudding thresh of hoofs . . . 
 Smell of spirting sawdust . . . 
 Crash of drums and trumpets • . • 
 Flaming hoops of fire . . . 
 
 [241 
 
THE QUEEN'S CRAGS 
 
 Flying hair . . . 
 
 Yellow ribbons . . . 
 
 Flashing teeth . . . 
 
 And flashing eyes . . . 
 
 My blood was mad, was mad for her, 
 
 I wanted to be flying round, 
 
 For ever flying round with her, 
 
 For ever, and for ever . . . 
 
 I wanted her 
 
 As I have never wanted woman, 
 
 Before or since . . . 
 
 (A pause.) 
 
 And yet, I've little doubt 
 
 That she'd have been a poor hand with the 
 
 porridge, 
 And poorer at the milking, 
 
 Though she could manage horses; 
 
 [25 1 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 And, maybe, 'twas as well 
 
 That I walked home that night with Susan. 
 
 Within nine months, we'd wedded. 
 
 There's naught amiss with Susan's porridge, 
 
 And she could milk a stone. 
 
 She's been a good and careful wife enough. 
 
 She never spares herself . . . nor me. 
 
 Though, I dare say, I'm even more a trial 
 
 To her, than to myself. 
 
 And, though I'm often harking back, 
 
 And sometimes hanker . . . 
 
 Somehow, I cannot see the Donna Bella, 
 
 In yellow skin-tights, cleaning out the byre! 
 
 And yet! 
 
 Michael 
 
 I saw Queen Guinevere, again, 
 
 Three years ago, upon Midsummer Eve. 
 
 She sat upon a little hill, and sang: 
 
 [261 
 
THE QUEEN'S CRAGS 
 
 And combed her long red hair, beside the 
 lough — 
 
 Just sitting like a leveret in the sun 
 
 To sleek its fur — 
 
 And all about her, grey snipe darted, drum- 
 ming. 
 
 She combed her long red hair 
 
 That tumbled down her shoulders, 
 
 Her long hair, red as bracken, 
 
 As bracken in October; 
 
 And with a gleam of wind in it, 
 
 A light of running water. 
 
 Her crown was in the heather, at her feet: 
 
 And, now and then, a snipe would perch 
 upon it; 
 
 And with his long neb preen his gleaming 
 feathers, 
 
 As if to mock the Queen, 
 
 [27] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Queen Guinevere, a-combing her long hair 
 That tumbled over a gown of blue . . • 
 As blue and shimmery as a mallard's neck . • . 
 And with a light of running water: 
 And, as she sang, 'twas like the curlew call- 
 ing, 
 And rippled through my heart like curlew 
 
 calling, 
 Like curlew calling in the month of April, 
 And with a clear cool noise of running water. 
 
 I dropped upon my belly in the bracken: 
 And lay and watched her, combing her red 
 
 hair: 
 And hearkened to her singing . . . 
 And I was sorry, when she'd done, at last, 
 And took her long red hair, and twisted it, 
 
 And fixed it with a golden pin. 
 
 [28] 
 
THE QUEEN'S CRAGS 
 
 Though she'd but little need of crown, 
 Whose hair was golden crown enough, 
 She stooped to take her gold crown from the 
 
 heather, 
 And set it on her brow: 
 Then stood upright, 
 Stood like a birch-tree in the wind, 
 A silver birch-tree in the sunset wind 
 That ripples through its leaves like running 
 
 water; 
 The little snipe about her drumming . . . 
 And then, I looked into her eyes, 
 Looked into golden pools, 
 Pools, golden 'neath October bracken . . . 
 And into the heart of fire . . . 
 
 (A pause.) 
 
 A shrew's cold muzzle touched my hand, 
 
 [29] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Among the bracken, startling me . . . 
 And she was gone . . . 
 
 George 
 (After a pause.) 
 
 And so, the leveret bolted! 
 
 You never saw her more? 
 
 So all tales end . . . 
 
 At least the true tales told by life itself. 
 
 Though I ... I saw my Queen again . . . 
 
 Yet . . . with a difference . . . 
 
 'Twas at the next fair after I was married. 
 
 I thought I'ld like a glimpse of her once more: 
 
 Though I had much ado, persuading Susan; 
 
 She'd never been inside a circus; 
 
 And thought it sorry waste of silver. 
 
 But, once inside the tent, 
 
 She liked it well enough: 
 
 [30] 
 
THE QUEEN'S CRAGS 
 
 And gaped and grinned her money's worth. 
 
 And I ... I sat, and waited, 
 
 And waited for my gypsy . . . 
 
 And snuffed the smell of sawdust: 
 
 While Susan giggled at the clown — 
 
 A yellow-legged old corncrake — 
 
 And nudged me with her elbow; 
 
 And asked me if I'd ever heard the like. 
 
 But, I'd no ears nor eyes 
 
 For any save my gypsy . . . 
 
 And she . . . she never came. 
 
 Another woman rode the coal-black mare — 
 
 A red-haired jumping-jenny — 
 
 And there was cracking whips . . • 
 
 And sawdust flying . . . 
 
 Drums and trumpets . . • 
 
 Flaming hoops . . . 
 
 And all the razzle-dazzle . . . 
 
 [311 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 But not my black-eyed gypsy. 
 
 And I sat, waiting still, when all was over, 
 
 Until the tent was empty . . . 
 
 Sat waiting for the Donna Bella . . . 
 
 Till Susan tugged me by the jacket, 
 
 And asked if Fid sit gaping there all night. 
 
 She got me out, at last. 
 
 And then ... I met her . . . 
 
 Met her, face to face, 
 
 My gypsy Queen! 
 
 But, oh! . . . how changed . . . 
 
 Except her eyes . . . 
 
 I knew her by her eyes: 
 
 For they still flashed and sparkled, 
 
 Though she was bent and hunched^ 
 
 And hobbled with a crutch. 
 
 She'd had a tumble, since I'd seen her flying 
 
 Around the ring, as light as thistle-down. 
 
 [32 1 
 
THE QUEEN'S CRAGS 
 
 She clutched me with a skinny hand, 
 
 Wanting to tell my fortune: 
 
 But Susan wouldn't let her: 
 
 She said, a married man had got his fortune; 
 
 So needn't waste his earnings. 
 
 The gypsy bit the straw between her teeth, 
 
 Her flashing teeth; 
 
 And, tilting her proud chin, 
 
 She laughed at that, with merry eyes 
 
 Twinkling 'neath her yellow kerchief — 
 
 Dandelion yellow — 
 
 Bound about her jet-black hair, 
 
 The hair that I'd seen flying free • . . 
 
 And when she laughed, 
 
 And looked into my eyes . . . 
 
 The heather was afire . . . 
 
 I could have caught her to me, 
 
 There and then . . .. 
 
 [33] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Whipped her up, and run with her 
 
 To the world's end, and over . . . 
 
 But, Susan . . . dragging on my arm . . . 
 
 Ay! broken as she was, 
 
 And hunched and hobbling, 
 
 I would have wedded her outright, 
 
 Had it not been for Susan . . . 
 
 I lost her in the crowd . . . 
 
 And never saw her more . . . 
 
 (Pause.) 
 
 And so, went home to decent porridge: 
 
 And 'twas as well, maybe. 
 
 A man must have his meat, if he's to work, 
 
 And victuals count for much. 
 
 And Susan's ever been a careful wife, 
 
 And had no easy time of it. 
 
 (Pause.) 
 [341 
 
THE QUEEN'S CRAGS 
 
 But, love's a queer thing, Michael. 
 It comes to you . . . like that! 
 
 (Striking his hands together.) 
 
 I've known a man walk seven miles each night 
 To see a woman's shadow on the blind. 
 And, in the end, 
 
 It's one, and one alone, that holds you, 
 Be 't Donna Bella, Guinevere, or Peggy. 
 
 (Pause.) 
 
 But you . . . you never saw your carroty 
 
 Queen, 
 Combing her long red hair again, I'll warrant. 
 
 Michael 
 (Slowly, as in a trance.) 
 
 I saw her once, upon Midsummer Eve, 
 Six years ago . . . 
 
 [35 1 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 I saw her, twice, upon Midsummer Eve, 
 Three years ago . . . 
 I'll see her thrice . . . 
 
 George 
 And, it's Midsummer Eve! 
 
 Michael 
 
 (Listening.) 
 
 And nigh the hour . . . 
 
 And hark, the snipe a-drumming! 
 
 George 
 
 You cannot think . . . 
 
 It's all a pack of lies . . . 
 
 Or else, you're daft, clean daft! 
 
 Your eyes are queer and wild. . . . 
 
 You do not see her now? 
 
 [36] 
 
THE QUEEN'S CRAGS 
 
 No! No! I thought not! 
 It's all stuff and nonsense, 
 Your silly tale about a red-haired Queen, 
 Who's been dead dust a thousand years, or 
 more. 
 
 Michael 
 (Leaping to his feet.) 
 She's coming . . . coming now . . . 
 
 George 
 {Leaping up, too, and gripping Michael's arm.) 
 
 No! No! 
 
 You're crazy, surely . . . 
 
 Yet . . . queer things happen on the fells, at 
 
 times . . . 
 
 And on Midsummer Eve . . . 
 
 [371 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Michael 
 (Listening more intently.) 
 
 She's drawing slowly nearer . . . 
 I hear her silks a-rustling through the 
 grass . . . 
 
 George 
 
 (Listening too.) 
 
 I seem to hear . . . 
 What are you gaping at? 
 
 Michael 
 
 (Looking up.) 
 
 The Queen! The Queen! 
 
 (They both stand, spellbound, gazing at a woman 
 standing on the crest of a boulder, burning like 
 a golden flame in the last rays of the setting 
 sun. Presently, looking down, and seeing them, 
 she laughs.) 
 
 [38] 
 
THE QUEEN'S CRAGS 
 
 George 
 
 (Shaking himself, while Michael still stands, spell- 
 bound.) 
 
 It's Peggy Haliburton, after all! 
 
 (To Peggy.) 
 
 Why, Michael said: 'twas Arthur's Queen. 
 
 He called her some outlandish name; 
 
 And said, she'd long red foxy hair, 
 
 And eyes like pools; 
 
 And sang just like the curlew. 
 
 But he'll be telling you himself: 
 
 For, all along, I knew 'twas you he meant. 
 
 Men's tongues wag madly on Midsummer 
 
 Eve: 
 And I've been talking, too, 
 A pack of nonsense, 
 
 As Michael, here, could tell you, 
 
 [39] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 If he'd not too much sense to heed 
 
 An old man's witless blathering. 
 
 Well, I had best be going; 
 
 And getting home to Susan. 
 
 She doesn't hold with owls, and such like. 
 
 1912 
 
 [40] 
 
BLOOD YBUSH EDGE 
 
 Bloodybush Edge is a remote spot on the border- 
 line between England and Scotland, marked by 
 a dumpy obelisk, on which is inscribed an old 
 scale of tolls. A rough sandy road runs down 
 across the dark moors, into England on the one 
 hand, and into Scotland on the other. It is a 
 fine, starry night in early September. Daft 
 Dick, a fantastic figure, in appearance half- 
 gamekeeper, half-tramp {dressed as he is in 
 cast-off clothes of country-gentlemen) swings up 
 the road from the Scottish side, singing. 
 
 "Now Liddisdale has ridden a raid; 
 But I wat they better hae stayed at hame; 
 For Michael o' Winfield, he lies dead; 
 And Jock o' the Side is prisoner ta'en." 
 
 He stands for a moment, looking across the fells, 
 
 which are very dark, in spite of the starry sky; 
 
 then flings himself down in the heather, with his 
 
 back to the obelisk, and lights his pipe. Pres- 
 
 [411 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 ently, he sees a dark figure, stumbling with un- 
 certain steps across the boggy moor; and watches 
 it keenly as it approaches, until it reaches the 
 road, when he sees that it is a strange man, evi- 
 dently a tramp. 
 
 Tramp 
 A track, at last, thank God! 
 
 Dick 
 
 Ay, there be whiles 
 When beaten tracks are welcome. 
 
 Tramp 
 
 Who the . . . Oh! 
 I didn't count on having company 
 Again in this world; and when I heard a 
 
 voice 
 I thought it must be another ghost. It's 
 
 queer 
 
 [42 1 
 
BLOODYBUSH EDGE 
 
 Hearing a voice bleat when you haven't 
 
 heard 
 A mortal voice for ages. I've not changed 
 A word with a soul since noon; and when you 
 
 spoke 
 It gave me quite a turn. A feather, Lord! 
 But it wouldn't take the shadow of a feather 
 To knock me over. I'm in such a stickle, 
 Dead-beat, and fit to drop. To drop! I've 
 
 dropped 
 A hundred times already, humpty-dumpty! 
 Why, I've been tumbling in and out black 
 
 holes, 
 Since sunset, on that god-forsaken moor, 
 Half -crazed with fear of . . . Ah, you've got 
 
 a light: 
 And I've been tramping all the livelong 
 
 day 
 
 [43] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 With a pipeful of comfort in my waistcoat- 
 pocket; 
 
 And would have swopt the frizzling sun it- 
 self; 
 
 For a match to kindle it. Thanks, mate, 
 that's better. 
 
 And now, what was it you were saying, Old 
 Cock, 
 
 When I mistook you then for Hamlet's 
 father? 
 
 Lord! if you'd seen him at the "Elephant," 
 
 In queer, blue sheeny armour, you'ld have 
 shivered. 
 
 "I am thy father's spirit," he says, like that, 
 
 Down in his boots. But you were saying 
 
 Dick 
 
 There are times 
 
 When beaten tracks are welcome. 
 
 r 44 1 
 
BLOODYBUSH EDGE 
 
 Tramp 
 
 True for you: 
 And truer by a score of bumps, for me. 
 My neck's been broken half-a-dozen times: 
 My body's just an aching bag of bones. 
 I'm one big bruise from top to toe, as though 
 I'd played in the Cup Final, as the ball. 
 And mud, I'm mud to the eyes, and over, 
 
 carrying 
 Half of the country that I've passed through 
 
 on me. 
 My best suit, too ! And I was always faddy 
 About my clothes. My mother used to call 
 
 me 
 Finicky Fred. If she could see me now! 
 I couldn't count the times that I've pitched 
 
 headlong 
 
 Into black bog. 
 
 [45] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Dick 
 
 Ay, there are clarty bits 
 In Foulmire Moss. But what set you strav- 
 
 aging 
 Among the peat-hags at this time of night? 
 Unless you know the tracks by heart. . . . 
 
 Tramp 
 
 I know 
 
 The Old Kent Road by heart. 
 
 Dick 
 
 The Old Kent Road? 
 
 Tramp 
 
 London, S. E. You've heard of London, 
 
 likely? 
 
 Dick 
 
 Ay! Ay! I've heard. . . . 
 
 [46 1 
 
BLOODYBUSH EDGE 
 
 Tramp 
 Well, mate, I've walked from London. 
 
 Dick 
 You've walked from London, here? 
 
 Tramp 
 
 Well, not to-day. 
 It must be nigh three hundred mile, I 
 
 reckon. 
 Just five weeks, yesterday, since I set out: 
 But, as you say, I've walked from London, 
 
 here: 
 Though where "here" is the devil only 
 
 knows! 
 What is "here" called, if it has any name 
 But Back o' Beyond, or World's End, 
 
 eh? 
 
 [471 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Dick 
 
 You're sitting 
 On Bloodybush Edge this moment. 
 
 Tramp 
 
 To think of that! 
 Bloodybush Edge! And that's what I have 
 
 come to; 
 While all my friends, the men and women I 
 
 know, 
 Are strolling up and down the Old Kent 
 
 Road, 
 Chattering and laughing by the lighted 
 
 stalls 
 And the barrows of bananas and oranges; 
 Or sitting snugly in bars; and here am I, 
 On Bloodybush Edge, talking to Hamlet's 
 
 father. 
 
 [481 
 
BLOODYBUSH EDGE 
 
 Dick 
 My name's Dick Dodd. 
 
 Tramp 
 
 Well, no offence, Old Cock! 
 And Hamlet's father was a gentleman, 
 A king of ghosts; and Lord! but he could 
 
 groan. 
 My name's . . . Jack Smith: and Jack 
 
 would give a sovereign, 
 A sovereign down, if he could borrow it, 
 And drinks all around, and here's to you, and 
 
 you! 
 Just to be sitting in The Seven Stars, 
 And listening to the jabber, just to snuff 
 A whiff of the smoke and spirit. Seven Stars ! 
 I'm lodging under stars enough to-night: 
 Seven times seven hundred. . . . 
 
 T49 1 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Dick 
 
 Often I have tried 
 
 To count them, lying here upon my back: 
 But they're too many for me. Just when 
 
 you think 
 You've reckoned all between two sprigs of 
 
 heather, 
 One tumbles from its place, or else a hundred 
 Spring out of nowhere. If you only stare 
 Hard at the darkest patch, for long enough 
 You'll see that it's all alive with little stars; 
 And there isn't any dark at all. 
 
 Tramp 
 
 No dark! 
 
 If you'd been tumbling into those black 
 
 holes, 
 You'ld not think overmuch of these same 
 
 stars. 
 
 r 501 
 
BLOOD YBUSH EDGE 
 
 I couldn't see my hand before me. Stars! 
 Give me the lamps along the Old Kent Road : 
 And I'm content to leave the stars to you. 
 They're well enough; but hung a trifle high 
 For walking with clean boots. Now a lamp 
 or so . . . 
 
 Dick 
 
 If it's so fine and brave, the Old Kent Road, 
 How is it you came to leave it? 
 
 Tramp 
 
 I'd my reasons. 
 
 Dick 
 
 Reasons! Queer reasons surely to set you 
 
 trapesing 
 Over Foulmire in the dark: though I could 
 
 travel 
 
 [511 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 The fells from here to Cheviot, blindfold. Ay ! 
 And never come a cropper. 
 
 Tramp 
 
 'Twas my luck, 
 
 My lovely luck, and naught to do with rea- 
 sons — 
 My gaudy luck, and the devilish dust and heat, 
 And hell's own thirst that drove me; and too 
 
 snug 
 A bed among the heather. Oversleeping, 
 That's always played the mischief with 
 
 me. Once 
 I slept till three in the morning, and . . . 
 
 Dick 
 
 Till three? 
 
 You're an early bird, if you call that over- 
 sleeping. 
 
 [521 
 
BLOODYBUSH EDGE 
 
 Folk hereabouts are mostly astir by three: 
 But, city-folk, I thought. . . . 
 
 Tramp 
 
 I'm on the night-shift. 
 I sleep by day, for the most part, like a cat. 
 That's why, though dog-tired now, I couldn't 
 
 sleep 
 A wink though you paid me gold down. 
 
 Dick 
 
 Night-shift, you! 
 
 And what may your job be? Cat's night- 
 shift, likely, 
 As well as day's sleep! 
 
 Tramp 
 Now, look here, Old Cock, 
 There's just one little thing that we could 
 
 teach you 
 
 [531 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Down London way. Why, even babes in 
 
 London 
 Know better than to ask too many questions. 
 You ask no questions, and you'll hear no 
 
 lies, 
 Is the first lesson that's hammered into them. 
 No London gentleman asks questions. Lord! 
 If you went "What's-your-job?"-ing down 
 
 our way 
 You'ld soon be smelling someone's fist I 
 
 reckon; 
 Or tripping over somebody in the dark 
 Upon the stairs: and with a broken neck, 
 Be left, still asking questions in your coffin, 
 Till the worms had satisfied you. Not that I 
 Have anything to hide, myself. I'm only 
 Advising you for your own good. But, Old 
 
 Chap, 
 
 [54] 
 
BLOODYBUSH EDGE 
 
 We were talking of something else . . . that 
 
 hell-hot road 
 I'd pegged along it through the blazing dust 
 From Bellingham, till I could peg no more, 
 My mouth was just a limekiln; and each 
 
 foot 
 One bleeding blister. A kipper on the grid, 
 That's what I was on the road. And the 
 
 heather looked 
 So cool and cosy, I left the road for a bit; 
 And coming on a patch of wet green moss, 
 I took my boots off; and it was so champion 
 To feel cold water squelching between my 
 
 toes, 
 I paddled on like a child, till I came to a 
 
 clump 
 
 Of heather in full bloom, just reeking honey; 
 
 And curled up in it, and dropt sound asleep; 
 
 \55] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 And, when I wakened, it was dark, pitch- 
 dark, 
 
 For all your stars. The sky was light enough, 
 
 Had I been travelling that way. But, for the 
 road, 
 
 I hadn't a notion of its whereabouts. 
 
 A blessed babe-in-the-woods I was, clean 
 lost, 
 
 And fit to cry for my mammy. Babes-in- 
 the-wood ! 
 
 But there were two of them, for company, 
 
 And only one of me, by my lone self. 
 
 However, I said to myself: You've got to 
 spend 
 
 A night in the heather. Well, you've known 
 worse beds, 
 
 And worse bed-fellows than a sheep or so — 
 
 Trying to make believe I wasn't frightened. 
 
 [56] 
 
BLOOD YBUSH EDGE 
 
 And then, somehow, I couldn't, God knows 
 
 why! 
 But I was scared: the loneliness, and all; 
 The quietness, and the queer creepy noises; 
 And something that I couldn't put a name 
 
 to, 
 A kind of feeling in my marrow bones, 
 As though the great black hills against the 
 
 sky 
 Had come alive about me in the night; 
 And they were watching me; as though I 
 
 stood 
 Naked, in a big room, with blind men sitting, 
 Unseen, all round me, in the quiet darkness, 
 That was not dark to them. And all the 
 
 stars 
 Were eyeing me; and whisperings in the 
 
 heather 
 
 [57] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Were like cold water trickling down my spine : 
 And when I heard a cough. . . . 
 
 Dick 
 
 A coughing sheep. 
 
 Tramp 
 
 May be: but 'twas a coughing ghost to me. 
 I've never yet set eyes on a ghost, unless 
 
 . . . (looking askance at Dick) 
 Though I've often felt them near me. Once, 
 
 when I . . . 
 But, Lord, I'm talking, talking . . o 
 
 Dick 
 
 I've seen ghosts, 
 A hundred times. The ghosts of reivers ride 
 The fells at night; and you'ld have ghosts in 
 
 plenty 
 
 [581 
 
BLOODYBUSH EDGE 
 
 About you, lad, though you were blind to 
 
 them. 
 But, why d' you fear them? There's no harm 
 
 in ghosts. 
 Even should they ride over you, it's only 
 Like a cold wind blowing through you. The 
 
 other night, 
 As I came down by Girsonsfield, the ghost 
 Of Parcy Reed, with neither hands nor 
 
 feet, 
 Rode clean through me; the false Halls, and 
 
 the Croziers 
 Hard on his heels, though I kept clear of 
 
 them; 
 And often I've heard him, cracking his 
 
 hunting-crop, 
 On a winter's night, when the winds were in 
 
 full cry; 
 
 [59] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 And heard the yelp of the pack, and the 
 
 horn's halloo, 
 Over the howl of the storm, or caught at 
 
 dawn 
 A glimpse of the tails of his green hunting- 
 jacket. 
 Whenever you shudder, or break in a cold 
 
 sweat, 
 Not knowing why, folk say that someone's 
 
 stepping 
 Over your grave; but that's all stuff and 
 
 nonsense. 
 It's only some poor ghost that's walking 
 
 through you. 
 
 Tramp 
 
 Well, ghosts or sheep, I'd had my fill of 
 them; 
 
 [601 
 
BLOODYBUSH EDGE 
 
 Went all to pieces, took to my heels and 
 ran; 
 
 And hadn't run three yards, when I pitched 
 headlong. 
 
 That was the first. Since then, I've felt the 
 bottom 
 
 Of every hole, five hundred to my reckon- 
 ing, 
 
 From there to here. 
 
 Dick 
 
 You've covered some rough ground. 
 But you have doubled back upon your tracks 
 If you were making North. 
 
 Tramp 
 
 Ay: I was making 
 
 For Scotland. I'd a notion . . . 
 
 [61] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Dick 
 
 Scotland lies 
 
 Under your left heel, though your right's in 
 
 England. 
 
 Tramp 
 
 To think of that! Well, I can't feel much 
 
 difference 
 Twixt one and the other. Perhaps, if I'd 
 
 my boots off . . . 
 But, Hamlet's father, isn't it a king's bed 
 We're lying on, and sprawling over two coun- 
 tries ! 
 And yet, I'd rather be in Millicent Place, 
 London, S. E., and sleeping three in a bed. 
 This room's too big for me, too wide and 
 
 windy; 
 The bed, too broad, and not what I call snug : 
 The ceiling, far too high, and full of eyes. 
 
 [62] 
 
BLOODYBUSH EDGE 
 
 I hate the loneliness. I like to feel 
 
 There are houses, packed with people, all 
 
 about me 
 For miles on miles: I'm fond of company; 
 I'm only really happy in a throng, 
 Crowds jostling thick and hot about me. Here 
 I feel, somehow, as if I were walking naked 
 Among the hills, the last man left alive. 
 I haven't so much as set eyes on a house, 
 Not since I left that blistering road. 
 
 Dick 
 
 The nearest 
 
 Is three miles off, or more. 
 
 Tramp 
 
 Well, country-people 
 Should be good neighbours, and quiet; but, 
 for me, 
 
 [631 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 I'd rather be packed like herrings in a bar- 
 rel. 
 I hate the loneliness: it makes me think. . . 
 I'm fond of company; too fond at times. 
 If I hadn't been so fond of company 
 A while back, I'ld have hardly been lying 
 
 now 
 On Bloodybush Edge, talking of ghosts at 
 
 midnight, 
 When I might be . . . but it won't bear 
 
 thinking on. 
 Yet, even with you beside me, Bloodybush 
 
 Edge 
 Is a size too big in beds — leaves too much 
 
 room 
 For ghosts, to suit my fancy. Three in a 
 
 bed, 
 
 And you sleep sound. 
 
 [641 
 
BLOODYBUSH EDGE 
 
 Dick 
 
 And why should you fear ghosts, 
 
 When, one fine night, you'll be a ghost your- 
 self? 
 
 How soon, who knows! Why, even at this 
 moment, 
 
 If you had broken your neck among the 
 moss-hags 
 
 You'ld be your own ghost sitting there, not 
 you. 
 
 If you hadn't been so muddy, and so fright- 
 ened . . . 
 
 Nay; but I've seen too many ghosts in my 
 time 
 
 For you to take me in. Ghosts often lean 
 
 Over me, when I'm fishing in the moonlight. 
 
 They're keen, are ghosts. I sometimes feel 
 
 their breath 
 
 [65 1 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Upon my neck, when I am guddling trout; 
 
 Or the clutch of their clammy fingers on my 
 wrist 
 
 When I am spearing salmon, lest I miss. 
 
 And always at the burning of the water 
 
 You'll see them lurking in the shadows, be- 
 yond 
 
 The flare and the smoke of the torches, in 
 the night, 
 
 Eager as boys to join in the sport; and at 
 times, 
 
 When they have pressed too near, and a 
 torch has flared, 
 
 I've seen the live flame running through their 
 bodies. 
 
 But oftenest they appear to me when alone 
 
 I'm fishing like a heron; and last night 
 
 As I stooped over Deadwater, I felt . . . 
 
 [661 
 
BLOODYBUSH EDGE 
 
 Tramp 
 
 And you're an honest man to be asking ques- 
 tions 
 
 Of gentlemen on tour! So, you're a poacher, 
 
 A common poacher: though it must be rare 
 sport, 
 
 I've often fancied . . . 
 
 Dick 
 
 To creep up to a pool 
 
 Where a big bull-trout lies beneath a boulder 
 
 With nose against the stream, his tail scarce 
 
 flicking; 
 
 To creep up quiet and without a shadow, 
 
 And lie upon your belly in the gravel; 
 
 And slide your hands as noiseless as an otter 
 
 Into the water, icy-cold and aching, 
 
 And tickle, tickle, till you have him fuddled; 
 
 f 67 1 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Then lift him, cold and slithery, from the 
 
 burn, 
 A quivering bit of silver in the moonlight . . . 
 
 Tramp 
 
 Ay, that must be rare sport; but, for my- 
 self, 
 Fid rather manage without the help of ghosts. 
 Once, I remember, I was bending down — 
 'Twas in an empty house ... I'd cut my 
 
 thumb, 
 The window jamming somehow, a nasty cut: 
 The mark's still there . . . (not that! nay, 
 
 that's the place 
 I was bitten by a friend) and as I fumbled 
 With a damned tricky lock, some Yankee pat- 
 ent, 
 I felt a ghost was standing close behind me, 
 
 [681 
 
BLOODYBUSH EDGE 
 
 And dared not stir, or squint over my shoul- 
 der: 
 
 But crouched there, moving neither hand 
 nor foot, 
 
 Till I was just a solid ache of terror, 
 
 And could have squealed aloud with the 
 numb cramp, 
 
 And pins and needles in my arms and 
 legs. 
 
 And then at last, when I was almost drop- 
 Ping, 
 
 I lost my head, took to my heels, and bolted 
 
 Headfirst down stairs, and through the 
 broken window, 
 
 Leaving my kit and the swag, without a 
 thought : 
 
 And never coming to my senses, till 
 
 I saw a bullseye glimmering down the lane. 
 
 [69] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 And then I found my brow was bleeding, 
 
 too — 
 At first I thought 'twas sweat — a three-inch 
 
 cut, 
 Clean to the bone. I had to have it stitched. 
 I told the doctor that I'd put my head 
 Through a window in the dark, but not a word 
 About my body following it. The doctor, 
 He was a gentleman, and asked no questions. 
 A civil chap: he'd stitched my scalp before 
 Once, when the heel of a lady's slipper . . . 
 
 Dick 
 
 So you 
 
 Are a common poacher, too; although you 
 
 take 
 Only dead silver and gold. Still it must be 
 
 A risky business, burgling, when the folk . . . 
 
 [70] 
 
BLOODYBUSH EDGE 
 
 Tramp 
 Risk! ay, there's risk! That's where the fun 
 
 comes in; 
 To steal into a house, with people sleeping 
 So warm and snug and innocent overhead; 
 To hear them snoring as you pass their doors 
 With all they're dreaming of stowed in your 
 
 pockets; 
 To tiptoe from the attic to the basement, 
 With a chance that you may find on any 
 
 landing 
 A door flung open, and a man to tackle. 
 It's only empty houses I'm afraid of. 
 I've more than once looked up a pistol's 
 
 snout, 
 And never turned a hair . . . though once I 
 
 heard 
 
 A telephone-bell ring in an empty house — 
 
 [71] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 And I can hear the damned thing tinkling 
 yet . . . 
 
 I'm all in a cold sweat just thinking of it. 
 
 It tinkled, tinkled . . . Risk! Why man 
 alive, 
 
 Life's all a risky business, till you're dead. 
 
 There's no risk then . . . unless ... I never 
 feared 
 
 A living man, sleeping or waking, yet. 
 
 But ghosts, well, ghosts are different some- 
 how. There's 
 
 A world of difference between men and 
 ghosts. 
 
 Let's think no more of ghosts — but lighted 
 streets, 
 
 And crowds, and women; though it's my be- 
 lief 
 
 There's not a woman in all this country-side. 
 
 [72 1 
 
BLOODYBUSH EDGE 
 
 Dick 
 
 There's womenfolk, and plenty. And they 
 
 are kind, 
 The womenfolk, to me. Daft Dick is ever 
 A favourite with the womenfolk. His belly 
 Would oft go empty, were it not for them. 
 
 Tramp 
 
 You call those women, gawky, rawboned 
 creatures, 
 
 Thin-lipped, hard-jawed, cold-eyed! I like 
 fat women. 
 
 If you could walk just now down the Old 
 Kent Road, 
 
 And see the plump young girls in furs and 
 feathers, 
 
 With saucy black eyes, sparkling in the gas- 
 light; 
 
 [73] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 And looking at you, munching oranges, 
 
 Or whispering to each other with shrill 
 
 giggles 
 As you go by, and nudging one another; 
 Or standing with a soldier eating winkles, 
 Grimacing with the vinegar and pepper, 
 Then laughing so merrily you almost wish 
 You were a red-coat, too! And the fat old 
 
 mothers, 
 Too old for feathers and follies, with their 
 
 tight 
 Nigh-bursting bodices, and their double chins, 
 They're homely, motherly and comfortable, 
 And do a man's eyes good. There's not a 
 
 sight 
 In all the world that's half as rare to see 
 As a fat old wife with jellied eels and 
 
 porter. 
 
 [741 
 
BLOODYBUSH EDGE 
 
 Ay, women should be plump . . . though 
 Ellen Ann 
 
 Was neither old nor fat, when she and I 
 
 Were walking out together, and she'd red 
 hair, 
 
 As red as blazes, and a peaked white face. 
 
 But 'twas her eyes, her eyes that always 
 laughed, 
 
 And the merry way she had with her . . . 
 But, Lord, 
 
 I'm talking! Only mention petticoats, 
 
 And I'm the boy to talk till dooms- 
 day. Women ! 
 
 If it hadn't been for a petticoat, this moment 
 
 I might be drinking my own health in the 
 bar 
 
 Of The Seven Stars or The World Turned 
 
 Upside Down, 
 
 [75] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Instead of . . . Well, Old Cock, it's good to 
 have 
 
 Someone to talk to, after such a day. 
 
 You cannot get much further with a sheep; 
 
 And I met none but sheep, and they all scut- 
 tled, 
 
 Not even stopping to pass the time of 
 day, 
 
 And the birds, well, they'd enough to say, 
 and more, 
 
 When I was running away from myself in 
 the dark, 
 
 With their "Go back! Go back!" 
 
 Dick 
 
 You'd scared the grouse. 
 They talk like Christians. Often in the 
 
 dawn . . . 
 
 [76] 
 
BLOODYBUSH EDGE 
 
 Tramp 
 
 Bloodybush Edge! But why the Bloody- 
 bush? 
 I see no bush. . . . 
 
 Dick 
 
 Some fight in the old days, likely, 
 In the days when men were men . . . 
 
 Tramp 
 
 I little thought, 
 
 When I set out from London on my travels, 
 
 That I was making straight for Bloodybush 
 
 Edge. 
 I had my reasons, but, reason or none, it's 
 
 certain 
 That Fid have turned up here, someday or 
 
 other : 
 
 For I must travel. I've the itching foot. 
 
 [771 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 I talk of London, when I'm well out of it 
 By a hundred miles or so; but, when I'm in 
 
 it, 
 There always comes a time when I couldn't 
 
 stay 
 A moment longer, not for love or money: 
 Though in the end it always has me back. 
 I cannot rest. There's something in my 
 
 bones — 
 They'll need to screw the lid down with 
 
 brass screws 
 To keep them in my coffin. When I'm dead, 
 If I don't walk, I'll be surprised, I . . . 
 
 Lord, 
 We're on to ghosts again! But I'm the sort 
 That's always hankering to be elsewhere, 
 Wherever I am. Some men can stick to a 
 
 job 
 
 [78] 
 
BLOODYBUSH EDGE 
 
 As though they liked it. I'm not made that 
 
 way. 
 I couldn't heave the same pick two days 
 
 running. 
 I've tried it: and I know. I must have 
 
 change. 
 
 It's in my blood. And work, why work's for 
 
 fools. 
 
 Dick 
 
 Ay, fools indeed: and yet they seem con- 
 tent. 
 
 Content! why my old uncle, Richard Dodd, 
 
 He worked till he was naught but skin and 
 bone, 
 
 And rheumatism: and when the doctor told 
 him: 
 
 "You must give up. It's no use; you're past 
 work." 
 
 [79] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 "Past work," he says, "past work, like an 
 
 old horse: 
 "They shoot old nags, when they are past 
 
 their work. 
 "Doctor," he says, "I'll give you five pound 
 
 down 
 "To take that gun, and shoot me like a 
 
 nag." 
 The doctor only laughed, and answered, 
 
 "Nay. 
 "An old nag's carcase is worth money, 
 
 Richard : 
 "But yours, why, who'ld give anything for 
 
 yours!" 
 They call me daft — Daft Dick. It pleases 
 
 them. 
 But I have never been daft enough to work. 
 I never did a hand's turn in my life: 
 
 [801 
 
BLOODYBUSH EDGE 
 
 And won't, while there are trout-streams 
 
 left, and women. 
 And I am a traveller, too, I cannot rest. 
 The wind's in my bones, I think, and like 
 
 the wind, 
 
 I'm here, to-night; to-morrow, Lord knows 
 
 where ! 
 
 Tramp 
 
 London, perhaps, or well upon the road 
 
 there, 
 Since I'm on Bloodybush Edge. 
 
 Dick 
 
 Nay, never London. 
 
 I cannot thole the towns. They stifle me. 
 
 I spent a black day in Newcastle, once. 
 
 Never again! I cannot abide the crowds. 
 
 I must be by myself. I must have air: 
 
 [811 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 I must have room to breathe, and elbow- 
 room, 
 
 Wide spaces round me, winds and running 
 water. 
 
 I know the singing-note of every burn 
 
 'Twixt here and High Cup Nick, by Appleby. 
 
 And birds and beasts, I must have them 
 about me. 
 
 Rabbits and hares, weasels and stoats and 
 adders, 
 
 Plover and grouse, partridge and snipe and 
 curlew, 
 
 Red-shank and heron. I think that towns 
 would choke me; 
 
 And Fid go blind shut in by the tall houses, 
 
 With never a far sight to stretch my eyes. 
 
 I must have hills, and hills beyond. And 
 
 beds — 
 
 [82] 
 
BLOODYBUSH EDGE 
 
 I never held with beds and stuffiness. 
 I'm seldom at my ease beneath a roof: 
 The rafters all seem crushing on my head, 
 A dead weight. Though I sleep in barns in 
 
 Winter, 
 I'm never at home except beneath the stars. 
 I've seen enough of towns; and as for the 
 
 women, 
 Fat blowsy sluts and slatterns . . . 
 
 Tramp 
 
 Easy, Old Cock! 
 "What's one man's meat . . ." as the saying 
 
 is; and so, 
 Each man to his own world, and his own 
 
 women. 
 
 {They sit for awhile smoking in silence. Then Daft 
 Dick begins singing softly to himself again.) 
 
 [83 1 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Dick 
 
 (Singing) "Their horses were the wrong way- 
 shod, 
 And Hobbie has mounted his grey sae fine, 
 Wat on his old horse, Jock on his bay; 
 And on they rode for the waters of Tyne. 
 
 "And when they came to Chollerton Ford, 
 They lighted down by the light o' the moon; 
 And a tree they cut with nogs on each side, 
 To climb up the wa' of Newcastle toun." 
 
 Tramp 
 What's that you're singing, matey? 
 
 Dick 
 
 "Jock o' the Side." 
 
 A ballad of the days when men were men, 
 
 [84] 
 
BLOODYBUSH EDGE 
 
 And sheep were sheep, and not all mixter- 
 
 maxter. 
 Thon were brave days, or brave nights, 
 
 rather, thon! 
 Brave nights, when Liddisdale was Liddis- 
 
 dale, 
 And Tynedale, Tynedale, not all hand-in- 
 
 glove, 
 And hanky-panky, and naught but market- 
 haggling 
 Twixt men whose fathers' swords were the 
 
 bargainers ! 
 That was a man's work, riding out, hot-trod, 
 Over the hills to lift a herd of cattle, 
 And leave behind a blazing byre, or to steal 
 Your neighbour's sheep, while he lay drunk 
 
 and snoring — 
 
 A man's work, ever bringing a man's wages, 
 
 [85] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 The fight to the death, or life won at the 
 
 sword's point. 
 God! those were nights: the heather and sky 
 
 alow 
 With the light of burning peel-towers, and 
 
 the wind 
 Ringing with slogans, as the dalesmen met, 
 Over the singing of the swords: 
 "An Armstrong! An Armstrong!" 
 "A Milburne! A Milburne!" 
 "An Elliott! An Elliott!" 
 "A Robson! A Robson!" 
 "A Charlton! A Charlton!" 
 "A Fenwick! A Fenwick!" 
 "Fy, Tynedale, to it!" 
 "Jethert's here! Jethert's here!" 
 "Tarset and Tarretburn! 
 
 "Hardy and heatherbred! 
 
 [86] 
 
BLOODYBUSH EDGE 
 
 "Yet! Yet!" 
 
 Man, did you ever hear the story told 
 Of Barty Milburne, Barty of the Comb, 
 Down Tarset way? and how he waked one 
 
 morning 
 To find that overnight some Scottish reiver 
 Had lifted the pick of his flock: and how hot- 
 foot 
 He was up the Blackburn, summoning Cor- 
 bet Jock: 
 And how the two set out to track the thieves 
 By Emblehope, Berrymoor Edge and Black- 
 man's Law, 
 By Blakehope Nick, and under Oh Me Edge, 
 And over Girdle Fell to Chattlehope Spout, 
 And so to Carter Bar; but lost the trail 
 Somewhere about the Reidswire: and how, 
 being loth 
 
 [87] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 To go home empty-handed, they just lifted 
 The best sheep grazing on the Scottish side, 
 As fair exchange: and turned their faces 
 
 home. 
 By this, snow had set in: and 'twas sore 
 
 work 
 Driving the wethers against it over the fell; 
 When, finding they were followed in their 
 
 turn 
 By the laird of Leatham and his son, they 
 
 laughed, 
 And waited for the Scots by Chattlehope 
 
 Spout 
 Above Catcleugh: and in the snow they 
 
 fought, 
 Till Corbet Jock and one of the Scots were 
 
 killed, 
 
 And Barty himself sore wounded in the thigh; 
 
 [881 
 
BLOODYBUSH EDGE 
 
 When the other Scot, thinking him good as 
 
 dead, 
 Sprang on him, as he stooped, with a whick- 
 ering laugh: 
 And Barty, with one clean, back-handed 
 
 blow, 
 Struck off his head, and, as they tell the tale, 
 "Garred it spang like an onion along the 
 
 heather." 
 Then, picking up the body of Corbet Jock, 
 He slung it over his shoulder; and carried his 
 
 mate 
 With wounded thigh, and driving the wethers 
 
 before him 
 Through blinding snow, across the boggy 
 
 fells 
 To the Blackburn, though his boot was filled 
 
 with blood. 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Or the other tale, how one of the Robson 
 
 lads 
 Stole a Scot's ewes: and when he'd got them 
 
 home, 
 And had mixed them with his own, found 
 
 out, too late, 
 They'd got the scab: and how he went 
 
 straight back 
 With a stout hempen rope to the Scot's 
 
 house 
 And hanged him from his own rooftree by 
 
 the neck 
 Till he was dead, to teach the rascal a lesson, 
 Or so he said, that when a gentleman called 
 For sheep the next time, he'ld think twice 
 
 about it 
 
 Before he tried to palm off scabbit ewes. 
 
 Poachers and housebreakers and bargainers! 
 
 [901 
 
BLOODYBUSH EDGE 
 
 Those men were men: and lived and died 
 
 like men; 
 Taking their own road — asking no man's 
 
 leave; 
 Doing and speaking outright, hot and clean, 
 The thing that burned in them, and paying 
 
 the price. 
 And those same gawky, rawboned women 
 
 mothered 
 Such sons as these; and still do, nowadays — 
 For hunting foxes, and for market-haggling! 
 You fear no living man! A glinting bullseye 
 Down a dark lane would not have set them 
 
 scuttling. 
 
 They didn't dread the mosshags in the dark. 
 
 And seemingly they'd little fear of ghosts, 
 
 Being themselves so free in making ghosts. 
 
 Ghosts ! why the night is all alive with ghosts, 
 
 [911 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Ghosts of dead raiders, and dead cattle- 
 lifters; 
 
 Poor, headless ghosts; and ghosts with 
 broken necks . . . 
 
 See that chap, yonder, with the bleeding thigh, 
 
 On a grey gelding, making for Hurkle- 
 winter — 
 
 A horse-thief, sure . . . And the ghostly 
 stallions whinney 
 
 As the ghostly reivers drive their flocks and 
 herds . . . 
 
 (Listening.) 
 
 They are quiet now: but I've often heard the 
 
 patter 
 Of sheep, or the trot- trot of the frightened 
 
 stirks 
 
 Down this same road . . . 
 
 [92] 
 
BLOODYBUSH EDGE 
 
 Tramp 
 
 Stop man! You'll drive me crazy! 
 
 Let's talk no more of ghosts ! I want to sleep : 
 
 I'm dog-tired . . . but I'll never sleep to- 
 night. 
 
 What's that ... I thought I heard . . . 
 I'm all a-tremble. 
 
 My very blood stops, listening, in my veins. 
 
 I'm all to fiddlestrings . . . Let's talk of 
 London, 
 
 And lights, and crowds, and women. Once I 
 met 
 
 A chap in the bar of The World Turned Up- 
 side Down, 
 
 With three blue snakes tattooed around his 
 wrist: 
 
 A joker, he was; and what he didn't know 
 
 Of women the world over you could shove 
 
 [93 1 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Between the nail and the quick, and never 
 
 feel it — 
 He told me that in Valparaiso once 
 A half-breed wench that he . . . but, Lord, 
 
 what's that! 
 
 (A low distant sound of trotting drawing quickly 
 nearer.) 
 
 I thought I heard . . . Do you hear noth- 
 ing? 
 
 Dick 
 
 Naught. 
 Tramp 
 
 I'm all on edge: I could have sworn I heard — 
 Where was I? Well, as I was saying . . . 
 
 God! 
 Can you hear nothing now? Trot-trot! 
 
 Trot-trot! 
 I must be going crazed, or you're stone deaf. 
 
 [94] 
 
BLOODYBUSH EDGE 
 
 Dick 
 
 Nay, I'm none deaf. 
 
 Tramp 
 
 It's coming nearer, nearer . . . 
 Trot-trot! trot-trot! Man, tell me that you 
 
 hear it, 
 For God's sake, or I'll go mad! 
 
 Dick 
 
 No two men ever 
 May hear or see them, together, at one time. 
 
 Tramp 
 
 Hear what? See what? Speak, man, if you've 
 a tongue! 
 
 Dick 
 
 The ghostly stirks. 
 
 [95] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Tramp 
 (Starting up.) 
 
 The ghostly stirks! Trot-trot! 
 
 Trot-trot! They're almost on us. Look 
 
 you! there! 
 Along the road there, black against the 
 
 sky. 
 They're charging down with eyes ablaze . . . 
 
 O Christ . . . 
 
 (He takes to his heels, running lamely down the road 
 on the Scottish side, as a herd of frightened young 
 stirks gallops down the road from the English 
 side. They pass Dick, who watches them, 
 placidly smoking, until they are by, when, taking 
 his pipe from his mouth, he gives a blood-curdling 
 whoop, which sends them scampering more 
 wildly after the tramp. Presently the cattle- 
 drover, panting and limping half-a-mile behind 
 his herd, comes down the road. Seeing Dick, 
 he stops.) 
 
 [96] 
 
BLOODYBUSH EDGE 
 
 Drover 
 
 Have any beasts come by? Lord, what a 
 
 dance 
 They've led me, since we quitted Belling- 
 
 ham! 
 I've chased them over half the countryside! 
 
 Dick 
 
 Aye: they were making straight for Din- 
 labyre. 
 
 Drover 
 
 Then I can rest. They cannot go far wrong 
 
 now. 
 We're for Saughtree; and I'm fair hattered, 
 
 and they 
 Can't have the spunk left in them to stray 
 
 far. 
 They'll be all right. 
 
 [07] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Dick 
 
 Ay! and your brother's with them. 
 
 Drover 
 Brother? I have no brother . . . 
 
 Dick 
 
 Well, he and you 
 Are as like as peas — a pair of gallows-birds. 
 And he was driving them, and walloping 
 them . . . 
 
 Drover 
 
 (Starting to run.) 
 
 Good God ! Just wait till I catch up with him ! 
 
 Dick 
 
 (Calling after him.) 
 
 It will take you all your time and more, to 
 
 catch him. 
 
 [98 1 
 
BLOODYBUSH EDGE 
 
 {To himself.) 
 
 Now, I can sleep in peace, without bed- 
 fellows. 
 Two in a bed is one too many for me — 
 And such a clatter-jaw! 
 
 1918 
 
 [99] 
 
HOOPS 
 
 SCENE: The big tent-stable of a travelling circus. 
 On the ground near the entrance, Gentleman 
 John, stable-man and general odd-job man, 
 lies smoking beside Merry Andrew, the clown. 
 Gentleman John is a little hunched man with 
 a sensitive face and dreamy eyes. Merry 
 Andrew, who is resting between the afternoon 
 and evening performances, with his clown's hat 
 lying beside him, wears a crimson wig, and a 
 baggy suit of orange-coloured cotton, patterned 
 with purple cats. His face is chalked dead white 
 and painted with a set grin, so that it is impos- 
 sible to see what manner of man he is. In the 
 background are camels and elephants feeding, 
 dimly visible in the steamy dusk of the tent. 
 
 Gentleman John 
 
 And then consider camels: only think 
 
 Of camels long enough, and you'ld go mad — 
 [100] 
 
HOOPS 
 
 With all their humps and lumps; their 
 
 knobbly knees, 
 Splay feet and straddle legs; their sagging 
 
 necks, 
 Flat flanks, and scraggy tails, and monstrous 
 
 teeth. 
 I've not forgotten the first fiend I met, 
 'Twas in a lane in Smyrna, just a ditch 
 Between the shuttered houses, and so nar- 
 row 
 The brute's bulk blocked the road; the huge, 
 
 green stack 
 Of dewy fodder that it slouched beneath 
 Brushing the yellow walls on either hand, 
 And shutting out the strip of burning blue: 
 And I'd to face that vicious, bobbing head 
 With evil eyes, slack lips, and nightmare 
 
 teeth, 
 
 [1011 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 And duck beneath the snaky, squirming 
 
 neck, 
 Pranked with its silly string of bright blue 
 
 beads, 
 That seemed to wriggle every way at once, 
 As though it were a hydra. Allah's beard! 
 But I was scared and nearly turned and ran: 
 I felt that muzzle take me by the scruff 
 And heard those murderous teeth crunching 
 
 my spine, 
 Before I stooped — though I dodged safely 
 
 under. 
 
 I've always been afraid of ugliness. 
 
 I'm such a toad myself, I hate all toads; 
 
 And the camel is the ugliest toad of all 
 
 To my mind: and it's just my devil's luck 
 
 I've come to this — to be a camel's lackey, 
 
 To fetch and carry for original sin, 
 [102] 
 
HOOPS 
 
 For sure enough, the camel's old evil incar- 
 nate. 
 Blue beads and amulets to ward off evil! 
 No eye's more evil than a camel's eye. 
 The elephant is quite a comely brute, 
 Compared with Satan camel, — trunk and all, 
 His floppy ears and his impertinent tail. 
 He's stolid, but, at least, a gentleman. 
 It doesn't hurt my pride to valet him, 
 And bring his shaving-water. He's a lord. 
 Only the bluest blood that has come down 
 Through generations from the mastodon 
 Could carry off that tail with dignity, 
 That tail and trunk. He cannot look absurd 
 For all the monkey tricks you put him 
 
 through, 
 Your paper hoops and popguns. He just 
 makes 
 
 [103] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 His masters look ridiculous, when his pomp's 
 Butchered to make a bumpkins' holiday. 
 He's dignity itself, and proper pride, 
 That stands serenely in a circus-world 
 Of mountebanks and monkeys. He has 
 
 weight 
 Behind him: aeons of primeval power 
 Have shaped that pillared bulk; and he 
 
 stands sure, 
 Solid, substantial on the world's foundations. 
 And he has form, form that's too big a thing 
 To be called beauty. Once long since, I 
 
 thought 
 
 To be a poet, and shape words, and mould 
 
 A poem like an elephant, huge, sublime, 
 
 To front oblivion: and because I failed 
 
 And all my rhymes were gawky, shambling 
 
 camels, 
 
 [1041 
 
HOOPS 
 
 Or else obscene, blue-buttocked apes, I'm 
 
 doomed 
 To fetch and carry for the things I've made, 
 Till one of them crunches my back-bone 
 
 with his teeth, 
 Or knocks my wind out with a forthright 
 
 kick 
 Clean in the midriff; crumpling up in death 
 The hunched and stunted body that was me, 
 John, the apostle of the Perfect Form! 
 Jerusalem! I'm talking, like a book, 
 As you would say: and a bad book at that, 
 A maundering, kiss-mammy book — The 
 
 Hunchback's End, 
 Or The Camel-Keeper's Reward — would be 
 
 its title. 
 
 I froth and bubble like a new-broached cask. 
 
 No wonder you look glum for all your grin. 
 [105] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 What makes you mope? You've naught to 
 
 growse about. 
 You've got no hump. Your body's brave 
 
 and straight — 
 So shapely even that you can afford 
 To trick it in fantastic shapelessness, 
 Knowing that there's a clean-limbed man 
 
 beneath 
 Preposterous pantaloons and purple cats. 
 I would have been a poet, if I could: 
 But better than shaping poems, 'twould 
 
 have been 
 To have had a comely body and clean limbs 
 Obedient to my bidding. 
 
 Merry Andrew 
 
 I missed a hoop 
 
 This afternoon. 
 
 [1061 
 
HOOPS 
 
 Gentleman John 
 You missed a hoop? You mean . . . 
 
 Merry Andrew 
 
 That I am done, used up, scrapped, on the 
 
 shelf, 
 Out of the running, — only that, no more. 
 
 Gentleman John 
 
 Well, I've been missing hoops my whole life 
 
 long; 
 Though, when I come to think. of it, perhaps 
 There's little consolation to be chewed 
 From crumbs that I can offer. 
 
 Merry Andrew 
 
 I've not missed 
 
 A hoop since I was six. I'm forty-two. 
 
 [107 1 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 This is the first time that my body's failed 
 
 me: 
 But 'twill not be the last. And . . . 
 
 Gentleman John 
 
 Such is life! 
 You're going to say. You see I've got it pat, 
 Your jaded wheeze. Lord, what a wit I'd 
 
 make 
 If I'd a set grin painted on my face. 
 And such is life, I'd say a hundred times, 
 And each time set the world aroar afresh 
 At my original humour. Missed a hoop! 
 Why, man alive, you've naught to grumble 
 
 at. 
 I've boggled every hoop since I was six. 
 I'm fifty-five; and I've run round a ring 
 Would make this potty circus seem a pinhole. 
 [108] 
 
HOOPS 
 
 I wasn't born to sawdust. I'd the world 
 For circus . . . 
 
 Merry Andrew 
 It's no time for crowing now. 
 I know a gentleman, and take on trust 
 The silver spoon and all. My teeth were cut 
 Upon a horseshoe: and I wasn't born 
 To purple and fine linen — but to sawdust, 
 To sawdust, as you say — brought up on 
 
 sawdust. 
 I've had to make my daily bread of sawdust: 
 Ay, and my children's — children's, that's the 
 
 rub, 
 As Shakespeare says . . . 
 
 Gentleman John 
 
 Ah, there you go again! 
 What a rare wit to set the ring aroar — 
 
 [109] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 As Shakespeare says! Crowing? A gentle- 
 man? . 
 Man, didn't you say you'd never missed a 
 
 hoop? 
 It's only gentlemen who miss no hoops, 
 Clean-livers, easy lords of life who take 
 Each obstacle at a leap, who never fail. 
 You are the gentleman. 
 
 Merry Andrew 
 
 Now don't you try 
 Being funny at my expense; or you'll soon 
 
 find 
 I'm not quite done for yet — not quite snuffed 
 
 out. 
 There's still a spark of life. You may have 
 
 words : 
 But I've a fist will be a match for them. 
 
 r 1101 
 
HOOPS 
 
 Words slaver feebly from a broken jaw. 
 I've always lived straight, as a man must do 
 In my profession, if he'd keep in fettle: 
 But I'm no gentleman, for I fail to see 
 There's any sport in baiting a poor man 
 Because he's losing grip at forty-two, 
 And sees his livelihood slipping from his 
 
 grasp — 
 Ay, and his children's bread. 
 
 Gentleman John 
 
 Why, man alive, 
 Who's baiting you? This winded, broken 
 
 cur, 
 That limps through life, to bait a bull like 
 
 you! 
 
 You don't want pity, man? The beaten bull, 
 
 Even when the dogs are tearing at his gullet, 
 [111] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Turns no eye up for pity. I, myself, 
 Crippled and hunched and twisted as I am, 
 Would make a brave fend to stand up to 
 
 you 
 Until you swallowed your words, if you 
 
 should slobber 
 Your pity over me. A bull! Nay, man, 
 You're nothing but a bear with a sore head. 
 A bee has stung you — you who've lived on 
 
 honey. 
 Sawdust, forsooth! You've had the sweet of 
 
 life: 
 You've munched the honeycomb till . . . 
 
 Merry Andrew 
 
 Ay: talk's cheap. 
 But you've no children. You don't under- 
 stand. 
 
 [1121 
 
HOOPS 
 
 Gentleman John 
 I have no children: I don't understand! 
 
 Merry Andrew 
 It's children make the difference. 
 
 Gentleman John 
 
 Man alive — 
 Alive and kicking, though you're shamming 
 
 dead — 
 You've hit the truth at last. It's that, just 
 
 that, 
 Makes all the difference. If you hadn't chil- 
 dren, 
 I 'Id find it in my heart to pity you, 
 Granted you'ld let me. I don't understand! 
 I've seen you stripped. I've seen your chil- 
 dren stripped. 
 
 [113] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 You've never seen me naked; but you can 
 
 guess 
 The misstitched, gnarled, and crooked thing 
 
 I am. 
 Now, do you understand? I may have words: 
 But you; man, do you never burn with pride 
 That you've begotten those six limber bodies, 
 Firm flesh, and supple sinew, and lithe 
 
 limb — 
 Six nimble lads, each like young Absalom, 
 With red blood running lively in his veins, 
 Bone of your bone, your very flesh and 
 
 blood? 
 It's you don't understand: God, what I'ld 
 
 give 
 This moment to be you, just as you are, 
 Preposterous pantaloons, and purple cats, 
 And painted leer, and crimson curls, and all, 
 [1141 
 
HOOPS 
 
 To be you now, with only one missed hoop, 
 If I'd six clean-limbed children of my loins, 
 Born of the ecstasy of life within me, 
 To keep it quick and valiant in the ring 
 When I . . . but I . . . Man, man, you've 
 
 missed a hoop: 
 But they'll take every hoop like blooded 
 
 colts : 
 And 'twill be you in them that leaps through 
 
 life, 
 And in their children, and their children's 
 
 children. 
 God! doesn't it make you hold your breath 
 
 to think 
 
 There'll always be an Andrew in the ring, 
 
 The very spit and image of you stripped, 
 
 While life's old circus lasts? And I ... at 
 
 least, 
 
 [115] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 There is no twisted thing of my begetting 
 To keep my shame alive: and that's the most 
 That I've to pride myself upon. But, God, 
 I'm proud, ay, proud as Lucifer, of that. 
 Think what it means, with all the urge and 
 
 sting, 
 When such a lust of life runs in the veins. 
 You, with your six sons, and your one missed 
 
 hoop, 
 Put that thought in your pipe and smoke it. 
 
 Well, 
 And how d'you like the flavour? Something 
 
 bitter? 
 And burns the tongue a trifle? That's the 
 
 brand 
 That I must smoke while I've the breath to 
 
 puff. 
 
 (Pause.) 
 [1161 
 
HOOPS 
 
 I've always worshipped the body, all my 
 
 life — 
 The body, quick with the perfect health 
 
 which is beauty, 
 Lively, lissom, alert, and taking its way 
 Through the world with the easy gait of the 
 
 early gods. 
 The only moments I've lived my life to the full 
 And that live again in remembrance unfaded 
 
 are those 
 When I've seen life compact in some perfect 
 
 body, 
 The living God made manifest in man: 
 A diver in the Mediterranean, resting, 
 With sleeked black hair, and glistening salt- 
 tanned skin, 
 Gripping the quivering gunwale with tense 
 
 hands, 
 
 [117] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 His torso lifted out of the peacock sea, 
 Like Neptune, carved in amber, come to 
 
 life: 
 A stark Egyptian on the Nile's edge poised 
 Like a bronze Osiris against the lush, rank 
 
 green : 
 A fisherman dancing reels, on New Year's 
 
 Eve, 
 In a hall of shadowy rafters and flickering 
 
 lights, 
 At St. Abbs on the Berwickshire coast, to 
 
 the skirl of the pipes, 
 The lift of the wave in his heels, the sea in 
 
 his veins: 
 A Cherokee Indian, as though he were one 
 
 with his horse, 
 
 His coppery shoulders agleam, his feathers 
 
 aflame 
 
 [1181 
 
HOOPS 
 
 With the last of the sun, descending a gulch 
 in Alaska: 
 
 A brawny Cleveland puddler, stripped to the 
 loins, 
 
 On the cauldron's brink, stirring the molten 
 iron 
 
 In the white-hot glow, a man of white-hot 
 metal : 
 
 A Cornish ploughboy driving an easy share 
 
 Through the grey, light soil of a headland, 
 against a sea 
 
 Of sapphire, gay in his new white cordu- 
 roys, 
 
 Blue-eyed, dark-haired and whistling a care- 
 less tune: 
 
 Jack Johnson, stripped for the ring, in his 
 
 swarthy pride 
 
 Of sleek and rippling muscle . . . 
 [1191 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Merry Andrew 
 
 Jack's the boy! 
 Ay, he's the proper figure of a man 
 But he'll grow fat and flabby and scant of 
 
 breath. 
 He'll miss his hoop some day. 
 
 Gentleman John 
 
 But what are words 
 To shape the joy of form? The Greeks did 
 
 best 
 To cut in marble or to cast in bronze 
 Their ecstasy of living. I remember 
 A marvellous Hermes that I saw in Athens, 
 Fished from the very bottom of the deep 
 Where he had lain, two thousand years or 
 
 more, 
 
 Wrecked with a galley-full of Roman pirates, 
 [120] 
 
HOOPS 
 
 Among the white bones of his plunderers 
 Whose flesh had fed the fishes as they sank, — 
 Serene in cold imperishable beauty, 
 Biding his time, till he should rise again, 
 Exultant from the wave, for all men's wor- 
 ship, 
 The morning-spring of life, the youth of the 
 
 world, 
 Shaped in sea-coloured bronze for everlast- 
 ing. 
 Ay, the Greeks knew; but men have for- 
 gotten now. 
 Not easily do we meet beauty walking 
 The world to-day in all the body's pride. 
 That's why I'm here — a stable-boy to 
 
 camels — 
 For in the circus-ring there's more delight 
 
 Of seemly bodies, goodly in sheer health, 
 [121] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Bodies trained and tuned to the perfect 
 
 pitch, 
 Eager, blithe, debonair, from head to heel 
 Aglow and alive in every pulse, than else- 
 where 
 In this machine-ridden land of grimy, glum, 
 Round-shouldered, coughing mechanics. Once 
 
 I lived 
 In London, in a slum called Paradise, 
 Sickened to see the greasy pavements crawl- 
 ing 
 With puny, flabby babies, thick as maggots. 
 Poor brats! Fid soon go mad, if I'd to live 
 In London, with its stunted men and women 
 But little better to look on than myself. 
 
 Yet, there's an island where the men keep 
 
 fit— 
 
 [122] 
 
HOOPS 
 
 St. Kilda's, a stark fastness of high crag: 
 They must keep fit or famish; their main 
 
 food 
 The Solan goose; and it's a chancy job 
 To climb down a sheer face of slippery gran- 
 ite 
 And drop a noose over the sentinel bird 
 Ere he can squawk to rouse the sleeping 
 
 flock. 
 They must keep fit — their bodies taut and 
 
 trim — 
 To have the nerve: and they're like tempered 
 
 steel, 
 Suppled and fined. But even they've grown 
 
 slacker 
 Through traffic with the mainland, in these 
 
 days. 
 
 A hundred years ago, the custom held 
 
 [123] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 That none should take a wife till he had 
 
 stood, 
 His left heel on the dizziest point of crag, 
 His right leg and both arms, stretched in mid 
 
 air, 
 Above the sea: three hundred feet to 
 
 drop 
 To death, if he should fail — a Spartan 
 
 test. 
 But any man who could have failed, would 
 
 scarce 
 Have earned his livelihood, or his children's 
 
 bread 
 On that bleak rock. 
 
 Merry Andrew 
 (Drowsily.) 
 
 Ay, children — that's it, children! 
 [124] 
 
HOOPS 
 
 Gentleman John 
 
 St. Kilda's children had a chance, at least, 
 With none begotten idly of weakling fa- 
 thers. 
 Spartan test for fatherhood! Should they 
 miss 
 Their hoop, 'twas death, and childless. You 
 
 have still 
 Six lives to take unending hoops for you, 
 And you yourself are not done yet . . . 
 
 Merry Andrew 
 
 (More drowsily.) 
 
 Not yet: 
 
 And there's much comfort in the thought of 
 
 children. 
 
 They're bonnie boys enough; and should do 
 
 well, 
 
 [125] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 If I can but keep going a little while, 
 A little longer till . . . 
 
 Gentleman John 
 
 Six strapping sons! 
 And I have naught but camels. 
 
 (Pause.) 
 
 Yet, I've seen 
 
 A vision in this stable that puts to shame 
 
 Each ecstasy of mortal flesh and blood 
 
 That's been my eyes' delight. I never 
 
 breathed 
 A word of it to man or woman yet: 
 I couldn't whisper it now to you, if you 
 
 looked 
 
 Like any human thing this side of death. 
 
 'Twas on the night I stumbled on the circus. 
 
 I'd wandered all day, lost among the fells, 
 [126] 
 
HOOPS 
 
 Over snow-smothered hills, through blinding 
 blizzard, 
 
 Whipped by a wind that seemed to strip and 
 skin me, 
 
 Till I was one numb ache of sodden ice. 
 
 Quite done, and drunk with cold, I'd soon 
 have dropped 
 
 Dead in a ditch; when suddenly a lantern 
 
 Dazzled my eyes. I smelt a queer warm smell ; 
 
 And felt a hot puff in my face; and blun- 
 dered 
 
 Out of the flurry of snow and raking wind 
 
 Dizzily into a glowing Arabian night 
 
 Of elephants and camels having supper. 
 
 I thought that I'd gone mad, stark, staring 
 mad: 
 
 But I was much too sleepy to mind just 
 
 then — 
 
 [127] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Dropped dead asleep upon a truss of hay; 
 And lay, a log, till — well, I cannot tell 
 How long I lay unconscious. I but know 
 I slept, and wakened: and that 't was no 
 
 dream. 
 I heard a rustle in the hay beside me; 
 And opening sleepy eyes, scarce marvelling, 
 I saw her, standing naked in the lamp- 
 light, 
 Beneath the huge tent's cavernous canopy, 
 Against the throng of elephants and camels 
 That champed unwondering in the golden 
 
 dusk, 
 Moon-white Diana, mettled Artemis — 
 Her body, quick and tense as her own bow- 
 string — 
 Her spirit, an arrow barbed and strung for 
 
 flight— 
 
 [1281 
 
HOOPS 
 
 White snow-flakes melting on her night-black 
 
 hair, 
 And on her glistening breasts and supple 
 
 thighs : 
 Her red lips parted, her keen eyes alive 
 With fierce, far-ranging hungers of the 
 
 chase 
 Over the hills of morn . . . The lantern 
 
 guttered : 
 And I was left alone in the outer darkness 
 Among the champing elephants and camels. 
 And I'll be a camel -keeper to the end: 
 Though never again my eyes . . . 
 
 (Pause.) 
 
 So, you can sleep, 
 You merry Andrew, for all you missed your 
 hoop. 
 
 [ 129 ] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 It's just as well, perhaps. Now I can hold 
 My secret to the end. Ah, here they come! 
 
 (Six lads, between the ages of three and twelve, clad 
 in pink tights covered with silver spangles, 
 tumble into the tent.) 
 
 The Eldest Boy 
 Daddy, the bell's rung, and . . . 
 
 Gentleman John 
 
 He's snoozing sound. 
 (To the youngest boy.) 
 
 You just creep quietly, and take tight hold 
 Of the crimson curls, and tug, and you will 
 
 hear 
 The purple pussies all caterwaul at once. 
 
 19U 
 
 [130] 
 
THOROUGHFARES 
 
 [131] 
 
TO EDWARD MARSH 
 
 [132 
 
SOLWAY FORD 
 
 He greets you with a smile from friendly 
 
 eyes; 
 But never speaks, nor rises from his bed: 
 Beneath the green night of the sea he lies, 
 The whole world's waters weighing on his 
 
 head. 
 
 The empty wain made slowly over the sand; 
 And he, with hands in pockets by the side 
 Was trudging, deep in dream, the while he 
 
 scanned 
 With blue, unseeing eyes the far-off tide: 
 When, stumbling in a hole, with startled 
 
 neigh, 
 His young horse reared; and, snatching at 
 
 the rein, 
 
 r 133 1 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 He slipped: the wheels crushed on him as he 
 
 lay; 
 Then, tilting over him, the lumbering wain 
 Turned turtle as the plunging beast broke free, 
 And made for home: and pinioned and half- 
 dead 
 He lay, and listened to the far-off sea; 
 And seemed to hear it surging overhead 
 Already; though 'twas full an hour or more 
 Until high-tide, when Solway's shining flood 
 Should sweep the shallow firth from shore 
 
 to shore. 
 He felt a salty tingle in his blood; 
 And seemed to stifle, drowning. Then again, 
 He knew that he must lie a lingering while 
 Before the sea might close above his pain, 
 Although the advancing waves had scarce a 
 
 mile 
 
 [134] 
 
SOL WAY FORD 
 
 To travel, creeping nearer, inch by inch, 
 With little runs and sallies over the sand. 
 Cooped in the dark, he felt his body flinch 
 From each chill wave as it drew nearer 
 
 hand. 
 He saw the froth of each oncoming crest; 
 And felt the tugging of the ebb and flow, 
 And waves already breaking over his breast; 
 Though still far-off they murmured, faint 
 
 and low; 
 Yet, creeping nearer, inch by inch; and now 
 He felt the cold drench of the drowning 
 
 wave, 
 And the salt cold of death on lips and brow; 
 And sank, and sank . . . while still, as in a 
 
 grave, 
 
 In the close dark beneath the crushing cart, 
 
 He lay, and listened to the far-off sea. 
 [135] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Wave after wave was knocking at his heart, 
 And swishing, swishing, swishing cease- 
 lessly 
 About the wain — cool waves that never 
 
 reached 
 His cracking lips, to slake his hell-hot 
 
 thirst . . . 
 Shrill in his ear a startled barn-owl 
 
 screeched . . . 
 He smelt the smell of oil-cake . . . when 
 
 there burst, 
 Through the big barn's wide-open door, the 
 
 sea — 
 The whole sea sweeping on him with a 
 
 roar . . . 
 He clutched a falling rafter, dizzily . . . 
 Then sank through drowning deeps, to rise 
 
 no more. 
 
 [1361 
 
SOLWAY FORD 
 
 Down, ever down, a hundred years he sank 
 Through cold green death, ten thousand 
 
 fathom deep. 
 His fiery lips deep draughts of cold sea drank 
 That filled his body with strange icy sleep, 
 Until he felt no longer that numb ache, 
 The dead-weight lifted from his legs at last: 
 And yet, he gazed with wondering eyes awake 
 Up the green glassy gloom through which he 
 
 passed : 
 And saw, far overhead, the keels of ships 
 Grow small and smaller, dwindling out of 
 
 sight; 
 And watched the bubbles rising from his 
 
 lips; 
 And silver salmon swimming in green night; 
 
 And queer big, golden bream with scarlet fins 
 
 dfie 
 
 137] 
 
 And emerald eyes and fiery-flashing tails; 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Enormous eels with purple-spotted skins; 
 And mammoth unknown fish with sapphire 
 
 scales 
 That bore down on him with red jaws agape, 
 Like yawning furnaces of blinding heat; 
 And when it seemed to him as though escape 
 From those hell-mouths were hopeless, his 
 
 bare feet 
 Touched bottom : and he lay down in his place 
 Among the dreamless legion of the drowned, 
 The calm of deeps unsounded on his face, 
 And calm within his heart; while all around 
 Upon the midmost ocean's crystal floor 
 The naked bodies of dead seamen lay, 
 Dropped, sheer and clean, from hubbub, 
 
 brawl and roar, 
 To peace, too deep for any tide to sway. 
 
 • • • • 
 
 [138] 
 
SOLWAY FORD 
 
 The little waves were lapping round the cart 
 Already, when they rescued him from death. 
 Life cannot touch the quiet of his heart 
 To joy or sorrow, as, with easy breath, 
 And smiling lips upon his back he lies, 
 And never speaks, nor rises from his bed; 
 Gazing through those green glooms with 
 
 happy eyes, 
 While gold and sapphire fish swim overhead. 
 
 139] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 A CATCH FOR SINGING 
 
 Said the Old Young Man to the Young Old 
 
 Man: 
 "Alack, and well-a-day!" 
 Said the Young Old Man to the Old Young 
 
 Man: 
 "The cherry-tree's in flourish!" 
 
 Said the Old Young Man to the Young Old 
 
 Man: 
 "The world is growing grey." 
 Said the Young Old Man to the Old Young 
 
 Man: 
 "The cherry-tree's in flourish!" 
 
 Said the Old Young Man to the Young Old 
 
 Man: 
 
 "Both flower and fruit decay." 
 [140] 
 
A CATCH FOR SINGING 
 
 Said the Young Old Man to the Old Young 
 
 Man: 
 "The cherry-tree's in flourish !" 
 
 Said the Old Young Man to the Young Old 
 
 Man: 
 "Alack, and well-a-day! 
 The world is growing grey: 
 And flower and fruit decay. 
 Beware Old Man, beware Old Man! 
 For the end of life is nearing; 
 And the grave yawns by the way . . ." 
 
 Said the Young Old Man to the Old Young 
 
 Man: 
 "I'm a trifle hard of hearing; 
 And can't catch a word you say . • • 
 But the cherry-tree's in flourish!'* 
 
 [141] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 GERANIUMS 
 
 Stuck in a bottle on the window-sill, 
 In the cold gaslight burning gaily red 
 Against the luminous blue of London night, 
 These flowers are mine: while somewhere out 
 
 of sight 
 In some black-throated alley's stench and 
 
 heat, 
 Oblivious of the racket of the street, 
 A poor old weary woman lies in bed. 
 
 Broken with lust and drink, blear-eyed and 
 
 ill, 
 
 Her battered bonnet nodding on her head, 
 From a dark arch she clutched my sleeve 
 and said: 
 
 [142] 
 
GERANIUMS 
 
 "I've sold no bunch to-day, nor touched a 
 
 bite . . . 
 Son, buy six-penn'orth; and 't will mean a 
 
 bed." 
 
 So, blazing gaily red 
 Against the luminous deeps 
 Of starless London night, 
 They burn for my delight: 
 While somewhere, snug in bed, 
 A worn old woman sleeps. 
 
 And yet to-morrow will these blooms be 
 
 dead 
 With all their lively beauty; and to-morrow 
 May end the light lusts and the heavy sor- 
 row 
 
 Of that old body with the nodding head. 
 [143] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 The last oath muttered, the last pint drained 
 
 deep, 
 She'll sink, as Cleopatra sank, to sleep; 
 Nor need to barter blossoms for a bed. 
 
 [144 J 
 
THE WHISPERERS 
 
 THE WHISPERERS 
 
 As beneath the moon I walked, 
 Dog-at-heel my shadow stalked, 
 Keeping ghostly company: 
 And as we went gallantly 
 Down the fell-road, dusty-white, 
 Round us in the windy night 
 Bracken, rushes, bent and heather 
 Whispered ceaselessly together: 
 "Would he ever journey more, 
 Ever stride so carelessly, 
 If he knew what lies before, 
 And could see what we can see?" 
 
 As I listened, cold with dread, 
 
 Every hair upon my head 
 
 Strained to hear them talk of me, 
 [145] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Whispering, whispering ceaselessly: 
 "Folly's fool the man must be, 
 Surely, since, though where he goes 
 He knows not, his shadow knows: 
 And his secret shadow never 
 Utters warning words, or ever 
 Seeks to save him from his fate, 
 Reckless, blindfold, and unknown, 
 Till death tells him all, too late, 
 And his shadow walks alone." 
 
 [146] 
 
MABEL 
 
 MABEL 
 
 When Nigger Dick and Hell-for- Women 
 
 slouched 
 Into the taproom of the "Duck and De'il," 
 The three Dalmatian pups slunk in at heel 
 And down among the slushy saw-dust 
 
 crouched; 
 But Mabel would not leave the windy street 
 For any gaudy tavern's reek and heat — 
 Not she! for Mabel was no spotted dog 
 To crawl among the steaming muddy feet 
 Beneath a bench, and slumber like a log. 
 
 And so she set her hoofs, and stayed outside, 
 Though Hell-for- Women pushed the swing- 
 door wide, 
 
 [147] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 And "Mabel, darling! Mabel, darling!" cried, 
 And Nigger Dick thrust out his head and 
 
 cursed 
 Until his tongue burned with so hot a thirst, 
 He turned and swore that he'd not split his 
 
 throat 
 To save the soul of any giddy goat. 
 
 And then they left her, stubborn, wild and 
 
 white, 
 Snuffing the wet air of the windy night: 
 And as she stood beneath a cold blue star 
 That pierced the narrow strip of midnight sky 
 Between the sleeping houses black and high, 
 The glare and glitter of the reeking bar, 
 And all the filth and squalor of the street 
 Were blotted out . . . 
 
 and she was lost between 
 [148] 
 
MABEL 
 
 The beetling crags of some deep, dark ra- 
 vine 
 In Andalusian solitudes of stone, 
 A trembling, young, bewildered nanny-goat 
 Within the cold blue heart of night alone . . . 
 Until her ears pricked, tingling to a bleat, 
 As, far above her, on a naked scar, 
 The dews of morning dripping from his 
 
 beard, 
 Rejoicing in his strength the herd-king 
 
 reared, 
 Shaking the darkness from his shaggy coat. 
 
 [149] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 THE VIXEN 
 
 The vixen made for Deadman's Flow, 
 Where not a mare but mine could go; 
 And three hounds only splashed across 
 The quaking hags of mile-wide moss; 
 Only three of the deadbeat pack 
 Scrambled out by Lone Maid's Slack, 
 Bolter, Tough, and Ne'er-Die-Nell: 
 But as they broke across the fell 
 The tongue they gave was good to hear, 
 Lively music, clean and clear, 
 Such as only light-coats make, 
 Hot-trod through the girth-deep brake. 
 
 The vixen, draggled and nigh-spent, 
 
 Twisted through the rimy bent 
 [150] 
 
THE VIXEN 
 
 Towards the Christhope Crags. I thought 
 Every earth stopt — winded — caught . . . 
 She's a mask and brush! When white 
 A squall of snow swept all from sight; 
 And hoodman-blind, Lightfoot and I 
 Battled with the roaring sky. 
 
 When southerly the snow had swept, 
 
 Light broke, as the vixen crept 
 
 Slinking up the stony brae. 
 
 On a jutting scar she lay, 
 
 Panting, lathered, while she eyed 
 
 The hounds that took the stiff brae-side 
 
 With yelping music, mad to kill. 
 
 Then vixen, hounds and craggy hill 
 Were smothered in a blinding swirl: 
 And when it passed, there stood a girl 
 [151] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Where the vixen late had lain, 
 Smiling down, as I drew rein, 
 Baffled; and the hounds, deadbeat, 
 Fawning at the young girl's feet, 
 Whimpered, cowed, where her red hair, 
 Streaming to her ankles bare, 
 Turned as white among the heather 
 As the vixen's brush's feather. 
 
 Flinching on my flinching mare, 
 
 I watched her, gaping and astare, 
 
 As she smiled with red lips wide, 
 
 White fangs curving either side 
 
 Of her lolling tongue . . . My thrapple 
 
 Felt fear's fang: I strove, agrapple, 
 
 Reeling . . . and again blind snow 
 
 Closed like night. 
 
 No man may know 
 [152] 
 
THE VIXEN 
 
 How Lightfoot won through Deadman's Flow 
 And naught I knew till, in the glow 
 Of home's wide door, my wife's kind face 
 Smiled welcome. And for me the chase, 
 The last chase, ended. Though the pack 
 Through the blizzard struggled back, 
 Gone were Bolter, Tough and Nell, 
 Where, the vixen's self can tell! 
 Long we sought them, high and low, 
 By Christhope Crag and Deadman's Flow, 
 By slack and syke and hag: and found 
 Never bone nor hair of hound. 
 
 [153] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 THE LODGING HOUSE 
 
 When up the fretful, creaking stair, 
 From floor to floor 
 I creep 
 
 On tiptoe, lest I wake from their first beauty- 
 sleep 
 The unknown lodgers lying, layer on layer, 
 In the packed house from roof to basement 
 Behind each landing's unseen door; 
 The well-known steps are strangely steep, 
 And the old stairway seems to soar, 
 For my amazement 
 Hung in air, 
 Flight on flight 
 Through pitchy night, 
 
 Evermore and evermore. 
 [154] 
 
THE LODGING HOUSE 
 
 And when at last I stand outside 
 
 My garret-door I hardly dare 
 
 To open it, 
 
 Lest, when I fling it wide, 
 
 With candle lit 
 
 And reading in my only chair, 
 
 I find myself already there . . . 
 
 And so must crawl back down the sheer 
 
 black pit 
 Of hell's own stair, 
 Past lodgers sleeping layer on layer, 
 To seek a home I know not where. 
 
 [155] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 THE ICE 
 
 Her day out from the workhouse-ward, she 
 
 stands, 
 A grey-haired woman, decent and precise, 
 With prim black bonnet and neat paisley 
 
 shawl, 
 Among the other children by the stall; 
 And with grave relish eats a penny ice. 
 
 To wizened toothless gums, with quaking 
 
 hands 
 She holds it, shuddering with delicious cold; 
 Nor heeds the jeering laughter of young men — 
 The happiest, in her innocence, of all: 
 For, while their insolent youth must soon 
 
 grow old, 
 She, who's been old, is now a child again. 
 
 [156] 
 
WOOLGATHERING 
 
 WOOLGATHERING 
 
 Youth that goes woolgathering, 
 
 Mooning and stargazing, 
 
 Always finding everything 
 
 Full of fresh amazing, 
 
 Best will meet the moment's need 
 
 When the dream brings forth the deed. 
 
 He who keeps through all his days 
 
 Open eyes of wonder 
 
 Is the lord of skiey ways, 
 
 And the earth thereunder: 
 
 For the heart to do and sing 
 
 Comes of youth's woolgathering. 
 
 [157] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 THE TRAM 
 
 Humming and creaking, the car down the 
 
 street 
 Lumbered and lurched through thunderous 
 
 gloam 
 Bearing us, spent and dumb with the heat, 
 From office and counter and factory home: 
 
 Sallow-faced clerks, genteel in black; 
 Girls from the laundries, draggled and dank; 
 Ruddy-faced labourers slouching slack; 
 A broken actor, grizzled and lank; 
 
 A mother with querulous babe on her lap; 
 A schoolboy whistling under his breath; 
 An old man crouched in a dreamless nap; 
 
 A widow with eyes on the eyes of death; 
 
 [158] 
 
THE TRAM 
 
 A priest; a sailor with deepsea gaze; 
 A soldier in scarlet with waxed moustache; 
 A drunken trollop in velvet and lace; 
 All silent in that tense dusk . . . when a 
 flash 
 
 Of lightning shivered the sultry gloom: 
 With shattering brattle the whole sky fell 
 About us, and rapt to a dazzling doom 
 We glided on in a timeless spell, 
 
 Unscathed through deluge and flying fire 
 In a magical chariot of streaming glass, 
 Cut off from our kind and the world's desire, 
 Made one by the awe that had come to pass. 
 
 [159 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 ON THE EMBANKMENT 
 
 Down on the sunlit ebb, with the wind in her 
 
 sails, and free 
 Of cable and anchor, she swept rejoicing to 
 
 seek the sea. 
 
 And my eyes and my heart swept out with 
 
 her, 
 When at my elbow I felt a stir; 
 And glancing down, I saw a lad — 
 A shambling lad with shifty air, 
 Weak-chested, stunted and ill-clad, 
 Who watched her with unseeing stare. 
 
 Dull, watery grey eyes he had 
 
 Blinking beneath the slouching cap 
 [160] 
 
ON THE EMBANKMENT 
 
 That hid the low-browed, close-cropped head: 
 
 And as I turned to him he said 
 
 With hopeless hangdog air: 
 
 "Just out of gaol three days ago; 
 
 And I'll be back before I know: 
 
 For nothing else is left a chap 
 
 When once he's been inside . . . and 
 
 so . . . 
 Then dumb he stood with sightless stare 
 Set on the sunlit, windy sail of the far-off 
 
 boat that free 
 Of cable and anchor still swept on rejoicing 
 
 to seek the sea. 
 
 My heart is a sunlit, windy sail: 
 My heart is a hopeless lad in gaol. 
 
 161 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 THE DANCERS 
 
 'Neath a thorn as white as snow, 
 High above the peacock sea, 
 Hither, thither, to and fro, 
 Merrily the grey rats go: 
 To the song of ebb and flow 
 Moving as to melody. 
 
 Over gnarled roots, high and low, 
 Twisting, frisking fearlessly, 
 Six young hearts that needs must know, 
 When the ragged thorn's in blow, 
 Spring, and Spring's desire, and so 
 Dance, above the dancing sea. 
 
 [162 
 
THE WIND 
 
 THE WIND 
 
 To the lean, clean land, to the last cold 
 
 height, 
 You shall come with a whickering breath, 
 From the depths of despair or the depths of 
 
 delight, 
 Stript stark to the wind of death. 
 
 And whether you're sinless, or whether you've 
 
 sinned, 
 It's useless to whimper and whine; 
 For the lean, clean blade of the cut-throat 
 
 wind 
 Will slit your weasand, and mine. 
 
 [163 J 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 THE VINDICTIVE STAIRCASE 
 
 OR 
 
 THE REWARD OF INDUSTRY 
 
 In a doomed and empty house in Hounds- 
 ditch 
 All night long I lie awake and listen, 
 While all night the ghost of Mrs. Murphy 
 Tiptoes up and down the wheezy staircase, 
 Sweeling ghostly grease of quaking candles. 
 
 Mrs. Murphy, timidest of spectres, 
 
 You who were the cheeriest of charers, 
 
 With the heart of innocence and only 
 
 Torn between a zest for priests and porter, 
 
 Mrs. Murphy of the ample bosom, — 
 
 Suckler of a score or so of children 
 [164] 
 
THE VINDICTIVE STAIRCASE 
 
 ("Children? Bless you! Why, I've buried 
 
 six, Sir.") 
 Who in forty years wore out three hus- 
 bands 
 And one everlasting, shameless bonnet 
 Which I've little doubt was coffined with 
 
 you— 
 Mrs. Murphy, wherefor do you wander, 
 Sweeling ghostly grease of quaking candles, 
 Up and down the stairs you scrubbed so 
 
 sorely, 
 Scrubbed till they were naked, dank, and 
 aching? 
 
 Now that you are dead, is this their ven- 
 geance? 
 Recollecting all you made them suffer 
 
 With your bristled brush and soapy water 
 [1651 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 When you scrubbed them naked, dank and 
 aching, 
 
 Have they power to hold your ghostly foot- 
 steps 
 
 Chained as to an everlasting treadmill? 
 
 Mrs. Murphy, think you 't would appease them 
 If I rose now in my shivering nightshirt, 
 Rose and told them how you, too, had suf- 
 fered — 
 You, their seeming tyrant, but their bond- 
 slave — 
 Toiling uncomplaining in their service, 
 Till your knuckles and your knees were 
 
 knotted 
 Into writhing fires of red rheumatics, 
 And how, in the end, 't was they who killed 
 
 you? 
 
 [166] 
 
THE VINDICTIVE STAIRCASE 
 
 Even should their knots still harden to you, 
 Bow your one and all-enduring bonnet 
 Till your ear is level with my keyhole, 
 While I whisper ghostly consolation: 
 Know this house is marked out for the 
 
 spoiler, 
 Doomed to fall to Hobnails with his pickaxe; 
 And its crazy staircase chopped to firewood, 
 Splintered, bundled, burned to smoke and 
 
 ashes, 
 Soon shall perish, scattered to the fourwinds. 
 Then, God rest your spirit, Mrs. Murphy! 
 
 Yet, who knows! A staircase . . . Mrs. 
 
 Murphy, 
 
 God forbid that you be doomed to tiptoe 
 
 Through eternity, a timid spectre, 
 
 Sweeling ghostly grease of quaking candles, 
 [167] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Up and down the spectre of a staircase, 
 While all night I lie awake and listen 
 In a damned and ghostly house in Hounds- 
 ditch! 
 
 [168 
 
RAGAMUFFINS 
 
 RAGAMUFFINS 
 
 Few folk like the wind's way; 
 Fewer folk like mine, — 
 Folk who rise at nine, 
 Who live to drudge and dine, 
 Who never see the starry light, 
 And sleep in the same bed each night 
 Under the same roof; 
 When the rascal wind and I 
 Happen to be gadding by, 
 Gentlefolk, so fat and fine 
 Beg to hold aloof, 
 
 Leaving us to starlit beds, and husks amid 
 the swine. 
 
 Few folk like the wind's song, 
 And fewer folk like mine, — 
 [1691 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Folk who trudge the trodden way, 
 Who keep the track and never stray, 
 Who think the sun's for making hay, — 
 Folk who cannot dance or play, 
 Faultless folk and fine. 
 Yet, the wind and I are gay, 
 In our ragamuffin way, 
 Singing, storm or shine. 
 
 170] 
 
THE ALARUM 
 
 THE ALARUM 
 
 Stark to the skin, I crawled a knife-edged 
 
 blade 
 Of melting ice above the pit of Hell, 
 Flame-licked and scorched; yet strangely un- 
 dismayed, 
 Till on my ears a dizzy clamour fell, 
 And dropt me sheer . . . and, wakening in 
 
 my bed, 
 I saw the sky, beyond the chimneys red 
 And heard the crazy clanging of a bell. 
 
 [171 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 IN A RESTAURANT 
 
 He wears a red rose in his buttonhole, 
 
 A city-clerk on Sunday dining out: 
 
 And as the music surges over the din 
 
 The heady quavering of the violin 
 
 Sings through his blood, and puts old cares 
 
 to rout, 
 And tingles, quickening, through his shrunken 
 
 soul, 
 
 Till he forgets his ledgers, and the prim 
 
 Black, crabbed figures, and the qualmy smell 
 
 Of ink and musty leather and leadglaze, 
 
 As, in eternities of Summer days, 
 
 He dives through shivering waves, or rides 
 
 the swell 
 
 On rose-red seas of melody aswim. 
 [172] 
 
THE GREETING 
 
 THE GREETING 
 
 "What fettle, mate?" to me he said 
 
 As he went by 
 
 With lifted head 
 
 And laughing eye, 
 
 Where, black against the dawning red, 
 
 The pit-heaps cut the sky: 
 
 "What fettle, mate?" 
 
 "What fettle, mate?" to him I said, 
 
 As he went by 
 
 With shrouded head 
 
 And darkened eye, 
 
 Borne homeward by his marrows, dead 
 
 Beneath the noonday sky : 
 
 "What fettle, mate?" 
 
 [173] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 WHEELS 
 
 To safety of the curb he thrust the crone: 
 When a shaft took him in the back, and prone 
 He tumbled heavily, but all unheard 
 Amid the scurry of wheels that crashed and 
 
 whirred 
 About his senseless head — his helmet crushed 
 Like crumpled paper by a car that rushed 
 Upon him unaware. And as he lay 
 He heard again the wheels he'd heard all day 
 About him on point-duty . . . only now 
 Each red-hot wheel ran searing over his 
 
 brow — 
 
 A sizzling star with hub and spokes and tyre 
 
 One monstrous Catherine-wheel of sparking 
 
 fire 
 
 [174] 
 
WHEELS 
 
 Whirring down windy tunnels of the 
 
 night . . . 
 That Catherine-wheel, somehow it will not 
 
 light- 
 Fixed to the broken paling; and the pin 
 Pricks the boy's finger as he jabs it in: 
 He sucks the salty blood — the spiteful thing 
 Fires, whizzing, sputtering sparks: he feels 
 
 them sting 
 His wincing cheek; and, on the damp night- 
 air, 
 The stench of burnt saltpetre and singed 
 
 hair . . . 
 While still he lies and listens without fear 
 To the loud traffic rumbling in his ear — 
 Wheels rumbling in his ear, and through his 
 
 brain 
 For evermore, a never-ending train 
 [175] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Of scarlet postal-vans that whirl one red 
 Perpetual hot procession through his head — 
 His head that's just a clanking, clattering 
 
 mill 
 Of grinding wheels . . . and down an endless 
 
 hill 
 After his hoop he runs, a little lad, 
 Barefooted 'neath the stars, in nightshirt 
 
 clad — 
 And stumbles into bed, the stars all gone 
 Though in his head the hoop keeps running 
 
 on 
 And on and on: his head grown big and wide 
 Holds all the windy night and stars in- 
 side . . . 
 And still within a hair's breadth of his ear 
 The crunch and gride of wheels rings sharp 
 
 and clear — 
 
 [1761 
 
WHEELS 
 
 Huge lumbering wagons, crusted axle-deep 
 With country marl, their drivers half-asleep 
 Against green toppling mounds of cab- 
 bages 
 Still crisp with dewy airs, or stacks of 
 
 cheese 
 Smelling of Arcady, till all the sky 
 In clouds of cheese and cabbages rolls by — 
 Great golden cheeses wheeling through the 
 
 night, \ 
 
 And giant cabbages of emerald light 
 That tumble after, scattering crystal drops . . . 
 While in his ear the grinding never stops — 
 Wheels grinding asphalt . . . then a high- 
 piled wain 
 Of mignonette in boxes . . . and again, 
 A baby at his father's cottage-door 
 
 He toddles, treading on his pinafore, 
 
 [1771 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 And tumbles headlong in a bed of bloom, 
 Half-smothered in the deep, sweet honeyed 
 
 gloom 
 Of crushed, wet blossom, and the hum of 
 
 bees — 
 Big bumble-bees that buzz through flowery 
 
 trees — 
 Grows furious . . . changing to a roar of 
 
 wheels 
 And honk of hooting horns: and now he 
 
 feels 
 That all the cars in London filled with 
 
 light 
 Are bearing down upon him through the 
 
 night, 
 
 As out of hall and theatre there pour 
 
 White-shouldered women, ever more and 
 
 more, 
 
 [178] 
 
WHEELS 
 
 Bright-eyed, with flashing teeth, borne in a 
 
 throng 
 Of purring, glittering cars, ten thousand 
 
 strong : 
 Each drowsy dame, and eager chattering lass 
 Laughing unheard within her box of glass . . . 
 And then great darkness, and a clanging bell — 
 Clanging beneath the hollow dome of hell 
 Aglow like burnished copper; and a roar 
 Of wheels and wheels and wheels for ever- 
 more, 
 As engine after engine crashes by 
 With clank and rattle under that red sky 
 Dropping a trail of burning coals behind, 
 That scorch his eyeballs till he lies half -blind, 
 Smouldering to cinder in a vasty night 
 Of wheeling worlds and stars in whirring 
 flight, 
 
 [1791 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 And suns that blaze in thunderous fury on 
 
 For ever and for ever, yet are gone 
 
 Ere he can gasp to see them . . . head to 
 
 heels 
 Slung round a monstrous red-hot hub, that 
 
 wheels 
 Across infinity, with spokes of fire 
 That dwindle slowly till the shrinking tyre 
 Is clamped like aching ice about his head . . . 
 
 He smells clean acid smells: and safe in bed 
 
 He wakens in a lime-washed ward, to hear 
 
 Somebody moaning almost in his ear, 
 
 And knows that it's himself that moans: and 
 
 then, 
 
 Battling his way back to the world of men, 
 
 He sees with leaden eyelids opening wide, 
 
 His young wife gravely knitting by his side. 
 [180] 
 
PROMETHEUS 
 
 PROMETHEUS 
 
 All day beneath the bleak, indifferent skies, 
 Broken and blind, a shivering bag of bones, 
 He trudges over icy paving stones, 
 And "Matches! Matches! Matches! 
 Matches!" cries. 
 
 And now beneath the dismal, dripping night 
 And shadowed by a deeper night, he stands: 
 And yet he holds within his palsied hands 
 Quick fire enough to set his world alight. 
 
 [181] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 NIGHT 
 
 Suddenly kindling the skylight's pitchy 
 
 square, 
 The eyes of a cat, sinister, glassy and green, 
 Caught by a trick of the light in a senseless 
 
 stare . . . 
 And the powers of the older night, abhorrent, 
 
 obscene, 
 Each from his den of darkness and loathly 
 
 lair, 
 Slink to my bedside, and gibber and mow, 
 
 and fill 
 My heart with the Fear of the Fen and the 
 
 Dread of the Hill 
 
 And the Terror that stalks by night through 
 
 the Wood of Doom. 
 [182] 
 
NIGHT 
 
 And things that are headless and nameless 
 
 throng the room: 
 The cold webbed fingers of witches are in 
 
 my hair: 
 The clammy lips of the warlock are clenched 
 
 to mine: 
 The Eel of the bottomless pit of Deadman's 
 
 Bog 
 Slithers an icy spiral about my spine: 
 A corpse-clutch freezes my midriff, the foul 
 
 reek of Fog . . . 
 
 When my hand is licked by the warm wet 
 
 tongue of my dog; 
 The eyes blink out; and Horror slinks back 
 
 to her den; 
 And I breathe again. 
 
 183] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 ON HAMPSTEAD HEATH 
 
 Against the green flame of the hawthorn-tree, 
 
 His scarlet tunic burns; 
 
 And livelier than the green sap's mantling 
 
 glee 
 The Spring fire tingles through him headily 
 As quivering he turns 
 
 And stammers out the old amazing tale 
 
 Of youth and April weather; 
 
 While she, with half -breathed jests that, sob- 
 bing, fail, 
 
 Sits, tight-lipped, quaking, eager-eyed and 
 pale, 
 
 Beneath her purple feather. 
 
 184 
 
A VISION IN A TEA-SHOP 
 
 A VISION IN A TEA-SHOP 
 
 His hair lit up the tea-shop like a fire, 
 The naked flame of youth made manifest — 
 Young hunger's unappeasable desire 
 Devouring cakes and cream with eager zest: 
 
 While cheek by jowl, an old man, bald and 
 blind 
 
 And peaked and withered as a waning moon, 
 
 With toothless, mumbling gums, and wan- 
 dering mind 
 
 Supped barley-water from a tremulous spoon. 
 
 I turned a moment: and the man was gone: 
 
 And as I looked upon the red-haired boy, 
 
 About him in a blinding glory shone 
 
 The sons of morning singing together for joy. 
 [185 1 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 LINES 
 
 Addressed to the Spectre of an Elderly Gen- 
 tleman, recently demised, Whom the 
 Author had once observed performing 
 a Benevolent Office in the Vicinity of 
 Holborn, W. C. 
 
 I saw you, seated on a horse's head, 
 While the blaspheming carter cut the traces, 
 Obese, white-waistcoated, and newly fed, 
 Through bland, indifferent monocle surveying 
 The gaping circle of indifferent faces. 
 
 And now, the news has come that you are 
 
 dead, 
 
 I see you, while they cut the tangled traces, 
 [1861 
 
LINES 
 
 On your own hearse's fallen horse's head, 
 Through bland, indifferent monocle survey- 
 ing 
 The unseeing circle of funereal faces. 
 
 [187] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 THE DREADNOUGHT 
 
 Breasting the tide of the traffic, the "Dread- 
 nought" comes, 
 
 Be-ribboned and gay, the first of the holiday 
 brakes, 
 
 Brimful of broken old women, a parish's 
 mothers, 
 
 Bearing them out for the day from grey al- 
 leys and slums — 
 
 A day in the forest of Epping grown green 
 for their sakes. 
 
 Listless and stolid they crouch, everlastingly 
 
 tired, 
 Mere bundles of patience outworn, half -deaf 
 
 and half-blind, 
 
 [188] 
 
THE DREADNOUGHT 
 
 Save only one apple-cheeked grannie, more 
 brisk than the others, 
 
 Who, remembering, with youth in her eyes 
 and the old dreams desired, 
 
 Sits kissing her hand to the drivers who fol- 
 low behind. 
 
 f 189 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 SIGHT 
 
 By the lamplit stall I loitered, feasting my 
 
 eyes 
 On colours ripe and rich for the heart's de- 
 sire — 
 Tomatoes, redder than Krakatoa's fire, 
 Oranges like old sunsets over Tyre, 
 And apples golden-green as the glades of 
 Paradise. 
 
 And as I lingered, lost in divine delight, 
 My heart thanked God for the goodly gift 
 
 of sight 
 And all youth's lively senses keen and 
 
 quick . . . 
 
 When suddenly, behind me in the night, 
 
 I heard the tapping of a blind man's stick. 
 [190] 
 
THE GORSE 
 
 THE GORSE 
 
 In dream, again within the clean, cold hell 
 Of glazed and aching silence he was trapped; 
 And, closing in, the blank walls of his cell 
 Crushed stifling on him . . . when the 
 
 bracken snapped, 
 Caught in his clutching fingers: and he lay- 
 Awake upon his back among the fern, 
 With free eyes travelling the wide blue day 
 Unhindered, unremembering; while a burn 
 Tinkled and gurgled somewhere out of sight, 
 Unheard of him, till, suddenly aware 
 Of its cold music, shivering in the light, 
 He raised himself; and with far-ranging stare 
 Looked all about him: and, with dazed eyes 
 
 wide 
 
 [191] 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 Saw, still as in a numb, unreal dream, 
 Black figures scouring a far hill-side, 
 With now and then a sunlit rifle's gleam; 
 And knew the hunt was hot upon his track: 
 Yet hardly seemed to mind, somehow, just 
 
 then . . . 
 But kept on wondering why they looked so 
 
 black 
 On that hot hillside, all those little men 
 Who scurried round like beetles — twelve, all 
 
 told . . . 
 He counted them twice over; and began 
 A third time reckoning them, but could not 
 
 hold 
 
 His starved wits to the business, while they ran 
 
 So brokenly, and always stuck at "five" . . . 
 
 And "One, two, three, four, five" a dozen 
 
 times 
 
 [192] 
 
THE GORSE 
 
 He muttered . . . "Can you catch a fish 
 
 alive?" 
 Sang mocking echoes of old nursery-rhymes 
 Through the strained, tingling hollow of his 
 
 head. 
 And now almost remembering, he was stirred 
 To pity them; and wondered if they'd fed 
 Since he had, or if, ever since they'd heard 
 Two nights ago the sudden signal-gun 
 That raised alarm of his escape, they, too, 
 Had fasted in the wilderness, and run 
 With nothing but the thirsty wind to -chew, 
 And nothing in their bellies but a fill 
 Of cold peat-water, till their heads were 
 
 light . . . 
 
 The crackling of a rifle on the hill 
 
 Rang in his ears; and stung to headlong flight, 
 
 [193 1 
 
BORDERLANDS AND THOROUGHFARES 
 
 He started to his feet; and through the brake 
 He plunged in panic, heedless of the sun 
 That burned his cropped head to a red-hot 
 
 ache 
 Still racked with crackling echoes of the 
 
 gun. 
 Then suddenly the sun-enkindled fire 
 Of gorse upon the moor-top caught his eye; 
 And that gold glow held all his heart's desire, 
 As, like a witless, flame-bewildered fly, 
 He blundered towards the league-wide yellow 
 
 blaze, 
 And tumbled headlong on the spikes of 
 
 bloom; 
 And rising, bruised and bleeding and adaze, 
 Struggled through clutching spines: the dense 
 
 sweet fume 
 
 Of nutty, acrid scent like poison stealing 
 [1941 
 
THE GORSE 
 
 Through his hot blood: the bristling yellow 
 
 glare 
 Spiking his eyes with fire, till he went reeling, 
 Stifling and blinded, on — and did not care 
 Though he were taken — wandering round 
 
 and round, 
 "Jerusalem the Golden" quavering shrill, 
 Changing his tune to "Tommy Tiddler's 
 
 Ground": 
 Till, just a lost child on that dazzling hill, 
 Bewildered in a glittering golden maze 
 Of stinging scented fire, he dropped, quite 
 
 done, 
 A shrivelling wisp within a world ablaze 
 Beneath a blinding sky, one blaze of sun. 
 
 1908-U 
 
 195] 
 
np HE following pages contain advertisements of 
 books by the same author or on kindred subjects. 
 
IMPORTANT BOOKS OF POETRY 
 BY 
 
 WILFRID WILSON GIBSON 
 
 Daily Bread 
 
 New Edition, Enlarged. Three volumes in one. Cloth, 
 i2mo. $1.25 net. 
 
 "A Millet in word-painting who writes with a terrible simplicity is Wilfrid 
 Wilson Gibson, born in Hexham, England, in 1878, of whom Canon 
 Cheyne wrote: 'A new poet of the people has risen up among us.' The 
 story of a soul is written as plainly in 'Daily Bread' as in 'The Divine 
 Comedy' and in 'Paradise Lost.'" — The Outlook. 
 
 Fires (Complete) 
 
 Cloth, i2mo. $1.25 net. 
 
 "In 'Fires' as in 'Daily Bread,' the fundamental note is human sympathy 
 with the whole of life. Impressive as these dramas are, it is in their 
 cumulative effect that they are chiefly powerful." — Atlantic Monthly. 
 
 Womenkind 
 
 Cloth, i2mo. $1.00 net. 
 
 "Mr. Gibson is a genuine singer of his own day and turns into appealing 
 harmony the world's harshly jarring notes of poverty and pain." — The 
 Outlook. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 
 
RABINDRANATH TAGORE'S NEW DRAMA 
 
 The King of the Dark Chamber 
 
 By 
 
 RABINDRANATH TAGORE 
 
 Nobel Prizeman in Literature, 1913; Author of "Gitan- 
 gali," "The Gardener," "The Crescent Moon," 
 " Sadhana," " Chitra," " The Post-Omce," etc. Cloth 
 12 mo. 
 
 "The real poetical imagination of it is unchangeable; 
 
 the allegory, subtle and profound and yet simple, is cast 
 
 into the form of a dramatic narrative, which moves with 
 
 unconventional freedom to a finely impressive climax; and 
 
 the reader, who began in idle curiosity, finds his intelligence 
 
 more and more engaged until, when he turns the last page, 
 
 he has the feeling of one who has been moving in worlds 
 
 not realized, and communing with great if mysterious 
 
 presences." 
 
 The London Globe, 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 
 
NEW POEMS AND PLAYS 
 
 The Congo and Other Poems 
 
 By Vachel Lindsay. Cloth, i2mo. 
 
 In the readings which he has given throughout the country Mr. Lindsay 
 has won the approbation of the critics and of his audiences in general 
 for the new verse form which he is employing. The wonderful effects 
 of sound produced by his lines, their relation to the idea which the 
 author seeks to convey and their marvelous lyrical quality are some- 
 thing, it is maintained, quite out of the ordinary and suggest new 
 possibilities and new meanings in poetry. In this book are presented 
 a number of Mr. Lindsay's most daring experiments, that is to say they 
 were experiments when they were first tried; they have been more than 
 justified by their reception. It is believed that the volume will be one 
 of the most discussed of all the year's output. 
 
 Earth Triumphant and Other Tales in Verse 
 
 By Conrad Aiken. Cloth, i2mo. $1.25 net. 
 
 Conrad Aiken is one of the first American writers to choose to tell his stories 
 in verse. Helston, Masefield and other Europeans have been doing 
 it with marked success, but hitherto this country has had no notable 
 representative in this line of endeavor. Though Mr. Aiken has been 
 writing for a number of years, Earth Triumphant and Other Tales in 
 Verse is his first published book. In it are contained, in addition to 
 the several narratives of modern life, a number of shorter lyrics. It is 
 a volume distinguished by originality and power. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 
 
NEW POEMS AND PLAYS 
 
 Plaster Saints 
 
 By Israel Zangwill. Cloth, i2mo. $1.25 net. 
 
 A new play of deep social significance. 
 
 The Melting Pot 
 
 By Israel Zangwill. Revised edition. Cloth, i2mo. 
 
 This is a revised edition of what is perhaps Mr. ZangwilFs most popular 
 play. Numerous changes have been made in the text, which has been 
 considerably lengthened thereby. The appeal of the drama to the 
 readers of this country is particularly strong, in that it deals with that 
 great social process by which all nationalities are blended together for 
 the making of the real American. 
 
 Sword Blades and Poppy Seed 
 
 By Amy Lowell, Author of "A Dome of Many-Coloured 
 Glass." Boards, i2mo. $1.25 net. 
 
 Of the poets who to-day are doing the interesting and original work, there 
 is no more striking and unique figure than Amy Lowell. The foremost 
 American member of the "Imagists" — a group of poets that includes 
 William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, Ford Madox Hueffer — she has 
 won wide recognition for her writing in new and free forms of poetical 
 expression. Miss Lowell's present volume of poems, "Sword Blades 
 and Poppy Seed," is an unusual book. It contains much perhaps 
 that will arouse criticism, but it is a new note in American poetry. Miss 
 Lowell has broken away from academic traditions and written, out of 
 her own time, real singing poetry, free, full of new effects and sub- 
 tleties. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 
 
NEW POEMS AND PLAYS 
 
 R 
 
 omance 
 
 By Edward Sheldon, Author of "The Nigger," etc. 
 Decorated cloth, i2mo. 
 
 Mr. Sheldon can be relied upon to provide drama that is not only good from 
 a technical standpoint, but unusual in subject-matter. The Nigger, 
 which proved to be one of the sensations of the New Theatre's short 
 career, is now followed by Romance, a play more admirable, perhaps, 
 in its construction, and of universal appeal. As a book the story seems 
 to have lost none of its brilliance; in fact the sharpness of its character 
 delineation, the intensity and reality of its plot and the lyrical beauty 
 of some of its passages are, if possible more apparent on the printed 
 page than in the theatre. There is little doubt but that the tremendous 
 success which the drama made when footlighted is to be duplicated 
 upon its appearance in this form. 
 
 Poems 
 
 By Harriet Monroe. Cloth, i2mo. $1.25 net. 
 
 In this book is brought together some of Miss Monroe's best work. As the 
 editor of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, wherein occasionally compositions 
 of her own have appeared, and as a contributor to the better magazines, 
 Miss Monroe has endeared herself to a large audience of discriminating 
 people. A distinguishing feature of the collection is that it is notably 
 representative of current ideas and sentiments, and pleasingly varied in 
 theme. The author's subjects are chosen from the Panama Canal, 
 the Titanic disaster, the turbine, the telephone, State Street, Chicago, 
 and other modern phases or factors of life. There is also a group of love 
 poems. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 
 
Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
 Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
 Treatment Date: June 2009 
 
 PreservationTechnologies 
 
 A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 
 111 Thomson Park Drive 
 Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 mil 
 
 ill! I I ' I 
 
 014 675 945 2 #l