Page:Poems (Edward Thomas, 1917).djvu/38

 "Old Adam Walker. Adam's Point you'll see

Marked on the maps."

"That was her roguery,"

The next man said. He was a squire's son

Who loved wild bird and beast, and dog and gun

For killing them. He had loved them from his birth,

One with another, as he loved the earth.

"The man may be like Button, or Walker, or

Like Bottlesford, that you want, but far more

He sounds like one I saw when I was a child.

I could almost swear to him. The man was wild

And wandered. His home was where he was free.

Everybody has met one such man as he.

Does he keep clear old paths that no one uses

But once a life-time when he loves or muses?

He is English as this gate, these flowers, this mire.

And when at eight years old Lob-lie-by-the-fire

Came in my books, this was the man I saw.

He has been in England as long as dove and daw,

Calling the wild cherry tree the merry tree,

The rose campion Bridget-in-her-bravery;

And in a tender mood he, as I guess,

Christened one flower Love-in-idleness,

And while he walked from Exeter to Leeds

One April called all cuckoo-flowers Milkmaids.

From him old herbal Gerard learnt, as a boy,

To name wild clematis the Traveller's-joy.

Our blackbirds sang no English till his ear

Told him they called his Jan Toy 'Pretty dear.'

(She was Jan Toy the Lucky, who, having lost

A shilling, and found a penny loaf, rejoiced.) 32