He fell in victory’s fierce pursuit, Holed through and through with shot, A sabre sweep had hacked him deep ’Twixt neck and shoulder-knot.... The potman cannot well recall, The ostler never knew, Whether his day was Malplaquet, The Boyne, or Waterloo. But there he hangs for tavern sign, With foolish bold regard For cock and hen and loitering men And wagons down the yard. Raised high above the hayseed world He smokes his painted pipe, And now surveys the orchard ways, The damsons clustering ripe. He sees the churchyard slabs beyond, Where country neighbours lie, Their brief renown set lowly down; _His_ name assaults the sky. He grips the tankard of brown ale That spills a generous foam: Oft-times he drinks, they say, and winks At drunk men lurching home. No upstart hero may usurp That honoured swinging seat; His seasons pass with pipe and glass Until the tale’s complete. And paint shall keep his buttons bright Though all the world’s forgot Whether he died for England’s pride By battle, or by pot. A FIGHT TO THE DEATH Two blind old men in a blind corridor Fought to the death, by sense of sound or touch. Doom flailed unseen, an iron hook-hand tore Flesh from the enemy’s ribs who swung the crutch. One gasped, “She looked on me and smiled, I say,” So life was battered out, for yea or nay. OLD WIVES’ TALES Were the tales they told absurd, Random tags for a child’s ear? Soon I mocked at all I heard, Though with cause indeed for fear. Of the mermaids’ doleful game In deep water I heard tell, Of lofty dragons blowing flame, Of the hornèd fiend of Hell. Now I have met the mermaid kin And find them bound by natural laws, They have neither tail nor fin, But are the deadlier for that cause. Dragons have no darting tongues, Teeth saw-edged nor rattling scales, No fire issues from their lungs, Poison has not slimed their tails. But they are creatures of dark air, Unsubstantial tossing forms, Thunderclaps of man’s despair In mid whirl of mental storms. And there’s a true and only fiend Worse than prophets prophesy, Whose full powers to hurt are screened Lest the race of man should die. Ever in vain may courage plot The dragon’s death with shield and sword, Or love abjure the mermaid grot, Or faith be fixed in one blest word. Mermaids will not be denied Of our last enduring shame, The dragon flaunts his unpierced hide, The fiend makes laughter with God’s Name. CHRISTMAS EVE On Christmas Eve the brute Creation Lift up their heads and speak with human voices; The Ox roars out his song of jubilation And the Ass rejoices.