Man and Dog + 

“ ’Twill take some getting.” “Sir, I think ’twill so.” + 

The old man stared up at the mistletoe + 

That hung too high in the poplar’s crest for plunder + 

Of any climber, though not for kissing under: + 

Then he went on against the north-east wind⁠— + 

Straight but lame, leaning on a staff new-skinned, + 

Carrying a brolly, flag-basket, and old coat⁠— + 

Towards Alton, ten miles off. And he had not + 

Done less from Chilgrove where he pulled up docks. + 

’Twere best, if he had had “a money-box,” + 

To have waited there till the sheep cleared a field + 

For what a half-week’s flint-picking would yield. + 

His mind was running on the work he had done + 

Since he left Christchurch in the New Forest, one + 

Spring in the seventies⁠—navvying on dock and line + 

From Southampton to Newcastle-on-Tyne⁠— + 

In seventy-four a year of soldiering + 

With the Berkshires⁠—hoeing and harvesting + 

In half the shires where corn and couch will grow. + 

His sons, three sons, were fighting, but the hoe + 

And reap-hook he liked, or anything to do with trees. + 

He fell once from a poplar tall as these: + 

The Flying Man they called him in hospital. + 

“If I flew now, to another world I’d fall.” + 

He laughed and whistled to the small brown bitch + 

With spots of blue that hunted in the ditch. + 

Her foxy Welsh grandfather must have paired + 

Beneath him. He kept sheep in Wales and scared + 

Strangers, I will warrant, with his pearl eye + 

And trick of shrinking off as he were shy, + 

Then following close in silence for⁠—for what? + 

“No rabbit, never fear, she ever got, + 

Yet always hunts. To-day she nearly had one: + 

She would and she wouldn’t. ’Twas like that. The bad one! + 

She’s not much use, but still she’s company, + 

Though I’m not. She goes everywhere with me. + 

So Alton I must reach to-night somehow: + 

I’ll get no shakedown with that bedfellow + 

From farmers. Many a man sleeps worse to-night + 

Than I shall.” “In the trenches.” “Yes, that’s right. + 

But they’ll be out of that⁠—I hope they be⁠— + 

This weather, marching after the enemy.” + 

“And so I hope. Good luck.” And there I nodded + 

“good night. You keep straight on.” Stiffly he plodded; + 

And at his heels the crisp leaves scurried fast, + 

And the leaf-coloured robin watched. They passed, + 

The robin till next day, the man for good, + 

Together in the twilight of the wood. + 