With wine of daybreak; he and I had kept Vigil with stars on bitter frosty nights: The stars and frost so burned, we never slept, But cursed the cold, and talked, and watched the lights Down in the valleys, passing to and fro, Like large and luminous stars that wandered slow.... Rising at dawn, those times, we had no fire,— And we were cold,—O bitter times were those,— And we were rained on, and we walked through mire, Or found a haystack, there to lie and doze; Until at evening, with a let of rain, We shivered awake, and limped, with crying pain, To farms, and begged a meal.... if they were kind We warmed ourselves, and maybe were allowed The barn to sleep in.... I was nearly blind, Sometimes, with need to sleep—sometimes so cowed By pain and hunger that for weeks on end I’d work in the fields,—and maybe lose my friend: Live steady for a while and flesh my bones, And reap or plough, or drive the cattle home, And weed the kitchen patch, and pile up stones; But always it must end, and I must roam; One night, as still as stars, I rose, was gone, They had no trace of me at come of dawn, And I was out once more in wind and weather, Brother of larks and leaves and dewy ferns, Friends of the road I had, we begged together, And slept together, and tended fire by turns: O, they were rare times, bitter times were they, Winding the open road day after day! And then I came to London.... Sick, half dead, Crossing a street I shocked with dizzy pain, With fury of sound, and darkness ... then in bed I woke; there was a long white counterpane; I heard, impassively, the doctors talk. From that day, without crutch, I could not walk. O, the sick-hearted times that took me then! The days, like vultures, sat to watch me dying. It seemed as if they lived to feed on men. I found no work, it seemed so useless trying. And I got sick of hearing doorbells ring: Begging in London was a hopeless thing. Once I had driven: I tried to get a job At driving ’busses, but there wasn’t any; Sometimes, by washing wheels, I earned a bob; Sometimes held horses for a stingy penny; And it was hard to choose between the bed That penny paid for, and a bite of bread. Often I hid in parks, and slept on benches, After the criers had wailed and passed me by; And it was cold, but better than the stenches Of ten men packed in one room like a sty. Twice, I was caught and jailed. It wasn’t bad, Come to think of the cot and bread I had. But O the weariness, day in, day out, Watching the people walking on so cold, So full of purpose, deaf to even a shout,— It was their utter heedlessness that told; It made me white at heart and sick with hate. Some guiltily looked away; some walked so straight