And she complained, poor lonely widowed soul, How no one cared, and men were rutters all; While true love is an ever-burning goal Burning the brighter as the shadows fall. And all love’s dogs went hunting at the call, Married or not she took them by the brain, Sucked at their hearts and tossed them back again. Like the straw fires lit on Saint John’s Eve, She burned and dwindled in her fickle heart; For if she wept when Harry took his leave, Her tears were lures to beckon Bob to start. And if, while loving Bob, a tinker’s cart Came by, she opened window with a smile And gave the tinker hints to wait a while. She passed for pure; but, years before, in Wales, Living at Mountain Ash with different men, Her less discretion had inspired tales Of certain things she did, and how, and when. Those seven years of youth; we are frantic then. She had been frantic in her years of youth, The tales were not more evil than the truth. She had two children as the fruits of trade Though she drank bitter herbs to kill the curse, Both of them sons, and one she overlaid, The other one the parish had to nurse. Now she grew plump with money in her purse, Passing for pure a hundred miles, I guess, From where her little son wore workhouse dress. There with the Union boys he came and went, A parish bastard fed on bread and tea, Wearing a bright tin badge in furthest Gwent, And no one knowing who his folk could be. His mother never knew his new name: she,-- She touched the lust of those who served her turn, And chief among her men was Shepherd Ern. A moody, treacherous man of bawdy mind, Married to that mild girl from Ercall Hill, Whose gentle goodness made him more inclined To hotter sauces sharper on the bill. The new lust gives the lecher the new thrill, The new wine scratches as it slips the throat, The new flag is so bright by the old boat. Ern was her man to buy her bread and meat, Half of his weekly wage was hers to spend, She used to mock ’How is your wife, my sweet?’ Or wail, ’O, Ernie, how is this to end?’ Or coo, ’My Ernie is without a friend, She cannot understand my precious life,’ And Ernie would go home and beat his wife. So the four souls are ranged, the chess-board set, The dark, invisible hand of secret Fate Brought it to come to being that they met After so many years of lying in wait. While we least think it he prepares his Mate. Mate, and the King’s pawn played, it never ceases Though all the earth is dust of taken pieces. II October Fair-time is the time for fun, For all the street is hurdled into rows Of pens of heifers blinking at the sun, And Lemster sheep which pant and seem to doze, And stalls of hardbake and galanty shows, And cheapjacks smashing crocks, and trumpets blowing, And the loud organ of the horses going.