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)