The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch   By: R. C. Lehmann (1856-1929)

FROM PUNCH

BY R. C. LEHMANN

Author of "ANNI FUGACES", "CRUMBS OF PITY", and "LIGHT AND SHADE"

LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMXVIII

Printed in Great Britain by Tumbull & Spears, Edinburgh

NOTE All but two of the pieces here printed appeared originally in Punch . My thanks are due to Messrs Bradbury, Agnew & Co., the Proprietors of Punch , for permitting me to reprint them here. "For Wilma" was first published in Blackwood's Magazine , and appears here by the courtesy of the Editor. R. C. L.

CONTENTS

THE VAGABOND SINGING WATER FOR WILMA CRAGWELL END THE BIRD IN THE ROOM KILLED IN ACTION EPITAPH TO FLIGHT LIEUTENANT ROBINSON, V.C. PAGAN FANCIES ROBIN, THE SEA BOY THE BIRTHDAY THE DANCE PANSIES THE DRAGON OF WINTER HILL FLUFFY, A CAT THE LEAN TO SHED THE CONTRACT JOHN THE SPARROW GELERT AVE, CAESAR! SOO TI THE BATH PETER, A PEKINESE PUPPY THE DOGS' WELCOME ODE TO JOHN BRADBURY TEETH SETTING THE DEATH OF EUCLID TO POSTUMUS IN OCTOBER A RAMSHACKLE ROOM THE LAST STRAW THE OLD GREY MARE AT PUTNEY "A LITTLE BIT OF BLUE" THE LAST COCK PHEASANT IN MEMORIAM

THE VAGABOND

It was deadly cold in Danbury town One terrible night in mid November, A night that the Danbury folk remember For the sleety wind that hammered them down, That chilled their faces and chapped their skin, And froze their fingers and bit their feet, And made them ice to the heart within, And spattered and scattered And shattered and battered Their shivering bodies about the street; And the fact is most of them didn't roam In the face of the storm, but stayed at home; While here and there a policeman, stamping To keep himself warm or sedately tramping Hither and thither, paced his beat; Or peered where out of the blizzard's welter Some wretched being had crept to shelter, And now, drenched through by the sleet, a muddled Blur of a man and his rags, lay huddled.

But one there was who didn't care, Whatever the furious storm might dare, A wonderful, hook nosed bright eyed fellow In a thin brown cape and a cap of yellow That perched on his dripping coal black hair. A red scarf set off his throat and bound him, Crossing his breast, and, winding round him, Flapped at his flank In a red streak dank; And his hose were red, with a purple sheen From his tunic's blue, and his shoes were green. He was most outlandishly patched together With ribbons of silk and tags of leather, And chains of silver and buttons of stone, And knobs of amber and polished bone, And a turquoise brooch and a collar of jade, And a belt and a pouch of rich brocade, And a gleaming dagger with inlaid blade And jewelled handle of burnished gold Rakishly stuck in the red scarf's fold A dress, in short, that might suit a wizard On a calm warm day In the month of May, But was hardly fit for an autumn blizzard.

Whence had he come there? Who could say, As he swung through Danbury town that day, With a friendly light in his deep set eyes, And his free wild gait and his upright bearing, And his air that nothing could well surprise, So bright it was and so bold and daring? He might have troubled the slothful ease Of the Great Mogul in a warlike fever; He might have bled for the Maccabees, Or risen, spurred By the Prophet's word, And swooped on the hosts of the unbeliever.

Whatever his birth and his nomenclature, Something he seemed to have, some knowledge That never was taught at school or college, But was part of his very being's nature: Some ingrained lore that wanderers show As over the earth they come and go, Though they hardly know what it is they know.