Ralph Hodgson Poems

Sour fiend, go home and tell the Pit
For once you met your master, -
A man who carried in his soul
Three charms against disaster,
...

Not baser than his own homekeeping kind
Whose journeyman he is -
Blind sons and breastless daughters of the blind
...

The old gilt vane and spire receive
The last beam eastward striking;
The first shy bat to peep at eve
Has found her to his liking.
...

He came and took me by the hand
Up to a red rose tree,
He kept His meaning to Himself
...

The book was dull, its pictures
As leaden as its lore,
But one glad, happy picture
Made up for all and more:
...

The leaves looked in at the window
Of the house across the way,
At a man that had sinned like you and me
And all poor human clay.
...

Reason has moons, but moons not hers,
Lie mirror'd on the sea,
Confounding her astronomers,
But O! delighting me.
...

He begged and shuffled on;
Sometimes he stopped to throw
A bit and benison
To sparrows in the snow,
...

When flighting time is on I go
With clap-net and decoy,
A-fowling after goldfinches
And other birds of joy;
...

It's sixty years ago, the people say:
Two village children, neighbours born and bred,
One morning played beneath a rotten tree
...