Page:Songs of the Road Doyle.djvu/103



A gentleman of wit and charm,

A kindly heart, a cleanly mind,

One who was quick with hand or purse

To lift the burden of his kind.

A brain well balanced and mature,

A soul that shrank from all things base,

So rode he forth that winter day,

Complete in every mortal grace.

And then—the blunder of a horse,

The crash upon the frozen clods,

And—Death? Ah! no such dignity,

But Life, all twisted and at odds!