Plowman by Sidney Keyes


Plowman

Time was I was a plowman driving
Hard furrows, never resting, under the moon
Or in the frostbound bright-eyes morning
Labouring still; my team sleek-hided
As mulberry leaves, my team my best delight
After the sidelong blade my hero,
My iron-shod horses, my heroic walkers,
Now all that’s finished.   Rain’s fallen now
Smudging my furrows, the comfortable
Elms are windpicked and harbour now no singer
Or southward homing bird; my horses grazing
Impossible mountain-sides, long-frogged and lonely,
And I’m gone on the roads, a peevish man
Contending with the landscape, arguing
With shrike and shrewmouse and my face in puddles;
A tiresome man not listened to nor housed
By the wise housewife, not kissed nor handled
By any but wild weeds and summer winds,
Time was I was a fine strong fellow
Followed by girls.   Now I keep company
Only with seasons and the cold crazy moon.

From "The Collected Poems of Sidney Keyes"
Rutledge, London (1945)

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