Page:Poems (Edward Thomas, 1917).djvu/40

 To bring his breakfast 'You thought wrong,' said Hob.

When there were kings in Kent this very Lob,

Whose sheep grew fat and he himself grew merry,

Wedded the king's daughter of Canterbury;

For he alone, unlike squire, lord, and king,

Watched a night by her without slumbering;

He kept both waking. When he was but a lad

He won a rich man's heiress, deaf, dumb, and sad,

By rousing her to laugh at him. He carried

His donkey on his back. So they were married.

And while he was a little cobbler's boy

He tricked the giant coming to destroy

Shrewsbury by flood. 'And how far is it yet?'

The giant asked in passing. 'I forget;

But see these shoes I've worn out on the road

And we're not there yet.' He emptied out his load

Of shoes for mending. The giant let fall from his spade

The earth for damming Severn, and thus made

The Wrekin hill; and little Ercall hill

Rose where the giant scraped his boots. While still

So young, our Jack was chief of Gotham's sages.

But long before he could have been wise, ages

Earlier than this, while he grew thick and strong

And ate his bacon, or, at times, sang a song

And merely smelt it, as Jack the giant-killer

He made a name. He too ground up the miller,

The Yorkshireman who ground men's bones for flour.

"Do you believe Jack dead before his hour?

Or that his name is Walker, or Bottlesford,

Or Button, a mere clown, or squire, or lord?

The man you saw,—Lob-lie-by-the-fire, Jack Cade

Jack Smith, Jack Moon, poor Jack of every trade, 34