Classic Poem

I

Now what's up, Missis, can't yer sleep?
Is it the wind in the chimbley, or yon owd cow?
She'll calve afore the morn
— Or I'll eeat her horn,
And I do know summat about stock, as you'll allow,
For we've niver lost a heifer nor yet a sow,
Though I'm not soa strong on sheep;
Soa, Missis, doan't you toss and taave a-that-how,
Or else I shan't be up at four to plough.

II

It's not the wind, nor yet the roaring chimbley,
Nor yet my sins, John,
It's Joe, our lad, what bothers me so much;
He did to-day;
He knows too much for me: what can I say?
It's no use arguing, 'coz he has you pinned.
His words is biting as the cold east wind;
So strange and wild, so sad, and yet so true,
They seem to pierce you through.

III

You know, owd gel, as I'm agen book larnin',
It's good for nowt! I've g'en you ivery warnin',
But you must egg him on to reead awaay;
Why! I should very soon bin off my feed
If I'd a set and read like him all daay,
The same as you've encouraged in yon loft
Wi' pen and ink, till he may well be soft.
He's all he wants; if larnin' drives him mad,
If books — the devil tek 'em! — be that bad,
You've nowt to do but chuck 'em in the draain,
And stop these maggots gnawin' at his braain.

IV

What is it, Joe? Yer muther's lost her sleep,
And soa 'ev I:
What dog 'ez bin a worryin' your sheep?
... You doan't think it 'ud hardly int'rest me?
... You meean a-course as I'm too owd to see:
Why bless yer heart! When you've reached sixty-five
There's precious little as you can't contrive.

V

I've watched the horses, father, on our farm,
Watered, well fed, and never fearing harm.
So long as they keep toiling all the day,
Granted the gift of living: that their pay.
Born in the spring,
Gambolling foals, in meadows sweet they fling,
Until at last the harness comes; the bit
Is forced between their teeth: the iron bit!
Poor hopeless slaves
Whose fathers galloped over open plains
Free as the wind across the sea, their manes
Flung backward on the breeze like streaming waves;
Gallant and wild they ran, unknown of men,
Their life a true one, worth the living, then;
But, now, if horses pondered —
Instead of standing by the stable door
With ever-patient eyes that dreaming, wondered —
Instead of dreaming there for evermore —
They'd trample on and kill the young they're rearing,
By one sharp cut the ghastly cord to sever;
So that when they are dead no horses ever
Should toil and slave in horrible endeavour,
But end a life that's never worth the bearing.

VI

Stop, Joe! I couldn't listen to sich words as that,
Foaks dudn't saay sich things: they'd niver do;
The roof would fall, the lightning strike us through;
You mek me dizzy.
D'ye expect as I'm to pull the plough
While Tinker strolls inside the " Spotted Cow "
And 'ez a pint wi' Lizzie?
I couldn't stand sich things not interferin';
Why! ... Providence itsen might be in hearin'.
Slaaves ... kill their fooals ... life not woth bearin' ...
It's blasphemy — that's flat!

VII

Father! I feel our life is lacking worth —
That's my disease;
That I shall nevermore find rest nor ease
Nor quietness, because on this strange earth
The meek, the kind, the mercifullest people —
Are ground by fate and trodden in the dust;
Their hopes all withered and their dreams a-rust,
While selfishness, and vice, and horrid lust
Are mounted on the top of every steeple.

The pious workers of each age have preached
That this our world is worthless, only reached
As one of Zion's stages — half-way there —
That we have no abiding city here;
That this is but a place of tears below:
A place of woe!
And so they dream some compensating scheme,
A heaven in which some kindly One stands fast
To balance up and make all clear at last;
Explain how sorrow came to be about;
How cruelty crept out;
Who sanctioned evil;
And who designed this diabolic revel,
This demon rout — this worse —
This devil's dance of our mad universe.

For I can see no token of that One;
No smiling providence when day is done;
No kindly ruler watching from the sky;
No One to hear our cry;
Nor sign of sanity nor wise domain —
Nothing but evil in one sad refrain.

Ruled by a blind and heartless madness,
Toiling to eat the bread of sadness,
Stooping to drink the tears of sorrow,
Hopelessly waiting each to-morrow,
Working with hate for some dread master
Who, if we halt, but flogs the faster:
Not by our will — who could pretend to care —
We live and work because the whip is there.

P'r'aps this old earth's our master; what we fancy
Is only rocks and soil and trees and stones,
This air and land and sea, these dead men's bones,
By some wild necromancy
This earth, this ancient globe, may be our master!
Our horses cannot know who is their lord:
The carter, they imagine, owns the farm;
They think the barking dog will do them harm,
They heed the word that falls from human lip;
But more they fear the stinging of the whip
That drives them from the manger to the cart;
Yet ... how can they distinguish man apart?

Just so, perhaps, we cannot see our master,
He being much too huge for us to see.
The trees, the grass, and all that grows — his hair;
The lightning and the storm — his rude embrace;
Mountains and valleys — scars upon his face;
Outbreathing fire and smoke, he strides alone
Across the void on errand unbeknown,
Some matter that by us can ne'er be guessed,
We, who are less than dust upon his breast.
For we are not his children, as it seemed,
This world is not as we so fondly dreamed.
Counting ourselves his children, whereas, rather,
Earth is our cruel master, not our father.
Poor hopeless slaves!
For whom is nothing better, nothing, ever,
No paradise, no heaven, whatsoever.
Now, therefore, like our horses, lacking thought,
By some strange master snared, alas! and caught,
We toil at his unfathomable aim:
What shame!
To slave for this old wrinkled cruel earth
Who binds us in his iron chains from birth!
Yet if we had the wit to cogitate,
We mortals should decide to end our state,
Place bounds upon this weary universe,
Revoke for ever deluded Adam's curse,
Defy our master with a dying breath,
Cheat this old earth, this Juggernaut of death,
This Gordian knot of life and time dissever;
And, at one blow, strike off our chains for ever.

VIII

I doan't mind that, now, Joe; it blaws away;
I've felt, mysen, a-that-'ow in my day:
I can remember as a youngish chap
At times, life wodn't hardly woth a rap.
It's nobbut baggerment; it passes off
Like the green sickness, or a winter's cough.
Niver you mind about the weeak and poor,
They're just like cast-off sheep, noa less, noa more,
Noa good to noabody as iver I could see,
The sooner dead the better:
Look at me!
Am I a rickbacked hoss, a toilin' slaave?
Am I a-longin' fer an early graave?
Doan't I enjoy my life? — a-course I do,
And if you hark to me, Joe, soa will you!
Our parson says I'm nobbut a heathen chap;
But what he says doan't bother me one scrap.
I'm quite content wi' what my feythers done,
We carries on from feyther down to son.

All your ideas, Joe, comes from books,
Or them owd Rooks, the parsons — drat 'em!
(Somebody 'scrat 'em) —
Wi' their caws of sin and their taales of woe,
And their better worlds where the righteous go;
What better world d'ye want than this?
A farm to till, a wife to kiss,
A hoss to gallop, good health to enjoy —
You couldn't want nothing noa better, my boy.

Soa listen to me, Joe —
Burn them owd books,
Forget them owd Rooks;
Jump on yer hoss when the sun's poppin' out,
When the frost in the air makes you shiver and shout;
Full gallop a mile
In the owd-fashioned style,
Then tell me if livin' ain't well woth the while.