From the same humane temper come the poet's kindly feeling for animals and his affectionate understanding of them. Over and over again its positive aspect finds expression, either quaint, comical or tender. And twice at least the negative side of it appears, coming as near to rage at the wanton destruction of animal life as so mellow and balanced a nature would ever get. It is a significant fact that at such moments he takes refuge in his humour--that humour, at once rich and delicate, which is perhaps the most precious quality of this poetry, and which, growing from a free and sympathetic contact with life, holds the scale counterpoised to a nicety against the glamorous romantic sense. Thus we have this scrap of verse, lightly throwing off a mood of disgust in whimsical idiom: I can't abear a Butcher, I can't abide his meat, The ugliest shop of all is his, The ugliest in the street; Bakers' are warm, cobblers' dark, Chemists' burn watery lights; But oh, the sawdust butcher's shop, That ugliest of sights! And thus in "Tit for Tat" we find this apostrophe to a certain Tom Noddy, just returning from a day of 'sport' with his gun over his shoulder: Wonder I very much do, Tom Noddy, If ever, when you are a-roam, An Ogre from space will stoop a lean face, And lug you home: Lug you home over his fence, Tom Noddy, Of thorn-stocks nine yards high, With your bent knees strung round his old iron gun And your head dan-dangling by: And hang you up stiff on a hook, Tom Noddy, From a stone-cold pantry shelf, Whence your eyes will glare in an empty stare, Till you are cooked yourself! The humour there, corresponding in degree to the indignation for which it is a veil, is relatively broad. There are many subtler forms of it, however, and one will be found in a charming piece which is apt to our present point. It is called "Nicholas Nye," and tells about an old donkey in an orchard. He is an unprepossessing creature, lame and worn-out: just a bit of animal jettison, thrown away here to end his days in peace. And the poet had a great friendship with him: But a wonderful gumption was under his skin, And a clear calm light in his eye, And once in a while: he'd smile:-- Would Nicholas Nye. Seem to be smiling at me, he would, From his bush in the corner, of may,-- Bony and ownerless, widowed and worn, Knobble-kneed, lonely and grey; And over the grass would seem to pass 'Neath the deep dark blue of the sky, Something much better than words between me And Nicholas Nye. _Wilfrid Wilson Gibson_