The moon come pale, the wind come cool, A big pike leapt in Lower Pool, The peacock screamed, the clouds were straking, My cut cheek felt the weather breaking; An orange sunset waned and thinned Foretelling rain and western wind, And while I watched I heard distinct The metals on the railway clinked. The blood-edged clouds were all in tatters, The sky and earth seemed mad as hatters; They had a death look, wild and odd, Of something dark foretold by God. And seeing it so, I felt so shaken I wouldn’t keep the road I’d taken, But wandered back towards the inn Resolved to brace myself with gin. And as I walked, I said, ’It’s strange, There’s Death let loose to-night, and Change.’ In Cabbage Walk I made a haul Of two big pears from lawyer’s wall, And, munching one, I took the lane Back into Market-place again. Lamp-lighter Dick had passed the turning And all the Homend lamps were burning, The windows shone, the shops were busy, But that strange Heaven made me dizzy. The sky had all God’s warning writ In bloody marks all over it, And over all I thought there was A ghastly light beside the gas. The Devil’s tasks and Devil’s rages Were giving me the Devil’s wages. In Market-place it’s always light, The big shop windows make it bright; And in the press of people buying I spied a little fellow crying Because his mother’d gone inside And left him there, and so he cried. And mother’d beat him when she found him, And mother’s whip would curl right round him, And mother’d say he’d done’t to crost her, Though there being crowds about he’d lost her. Lord, give to men who are old and rougher The things that little children suffer, And let keep bright and undefiled The young years of the little child. I pat his head at edge of street And gi’m my second pear to eat. Right under lamp, I pat his head, ’I’ll stay till mother come,’ I said, And stay I did, and joked and talked, And shoppers wondered as they walked. ’There’s that Saul Kane, the drunken blaggard, Talking to little Jimmy Jaggard. The drunken blaggard reeks of drink.’ ’Whatever will his mother think?’ ’Wherever has his mother gone? Nip round to Mrs Jaggard’s, John, And say her Jimmy’s out again, In Market-place, with boozer Kane.’ ’When he come out to-day he staggered. O, Jimmy Jaggard, Jimmy Jaggard.’ ’His mother’s gone inside to bargain, Run in and tell her, Polly Margin, And tell her poacher Kane is tipsy And selling Jimmy to a gipsy.’ ’Run in to Mrs Jaggard, Ellen, Or else, dear knows, there’ll be no tellin’, And don’t dare leave yer till you’ve fount her, You’ll find her at the linen counter.’