Classic Poem

Men delight to praise men; and to edge
A little further off from death the memory
Of any noted or bright personality
Is still a luck and poet's privilege.
And so the man who goes in my dark mind
With sand and broad waters and general kind
Of fish-and-fox-and-bird lore, and walking lank;
Knowledge of net and rod and rib and shank,
Might well stretch out my mind to be a frame—
A picture of a worthy without name.
You might see him at morning by the lock-gates,
Or busy in the warehouse on a multitude
Of boat fittings, net fittings; copper, iron, wood,
Then later digging, furious, electric
Under the apple boughs, with a short stick,
Burnt black long ages, of pipe between set teeth,
His eyes gone flaming on the work beneath—
He up-and-down working like a marionette.
Back set, eyes set, wrists; and the work self-set.

His afternoon was action but all nebulous
Trailed over four miles country, tentaculous
Of coalmen, farmers, fishermen his friends,
And duties without beginnings and without ends.
There was talk with equals, there were birds and fish to observe,
Stuff for a hundred thoughts on the canal's curves,
A world of sight—and back in time for tea;
Or the tide's change, his care, or a barge to let free.
The lowering of the waters, the quick inflow,
The trouble and the turmoil; characteristic row
Of exits or of river entrances;
With old (how old?) cries of the straining crews,
(Norse, Phoenician, Norse, British? immemorial use).
Tins would float shining at three-quarter tide
Midstream his line of fire, never far wide—
Dimples of water showed his aim a guide,
And ringed the sunset colours with bright ripples.
Later, tide being past violence, the gates known safe,
He would leave his station, lock warehouse and half
Conscious of tiredness now, moving lankly and slow,
Would go in a dark time like some phantom or wraith,
Most like a woodsman in full summer glow.
There he was not known to me, but as hearers know
Outside the blue door facing the canal path;
Two hours or three hours of talk; as the fishers know
Or sailors, or poachers, or wandering men know talk.

Poverty or closing time would bring him again.
On the cinder path outside would be heard his slow walk.
It had a width, that Severn chimney-corner,
A dignity and largeness which should make grave
Each word or cadence uttered or let fall, save
When the damp wind in garden shrubs was mourner.
It would have needed one far less sick than I
To have questioned, to have pried each vein of his wide lore.
One should be stable, and be able for wide views,
Have knowledge, and skilled manage of questions use
When the captain is met, the capable in use,
The pictured mind, the skilled one, the hawk-eyed one;
The deft-handed, quick-moving, the touch-commanded one.
Man and element and animal comprehending
And all-paralleling one. His knowledge transcending
Books, from long vain searches of dull fact.
Conviction needing instant change to act.

The nights of winter netting birds in hedges;
The stalking wild-duck by down-river sedges:
The tricks of sailing; fashions of salmon-netting:
Cunning of practice, the finding, doing, the getting—
Wisdom of every various season or light—
Fish running, tide running, plant learning and bird flight.
Short cuts, and watercress beds, and all snaring touches,
Angling and line laying and wild beast brushes;
Badgers, stoats, foxes, the few snakes, care of ferrets,
Exactly known and judged of on their merits.
Bee-swarming, wasp-exterminating and bird-stuffing.
There was nothing he did not know; there was nothing, nothing.

Some men are best seen in the full day shine,
Some in half-light or the dark star-light fine:
But he, close in the deep chimney-corner, seen
Shadow and bright flare, saturnine and lean;
Clouded with smoke, wrapped round with cloak of thought,
He gave more of desert to me—more than I ought—
Who was more used to book-poring than bright life.

One had seen half-height covering the stretched sand
With purpose, insistent, creeping-up with silver band,
But dark determined, making wide on and sure.

So behind talk flowed the true spirit—to endure,
To perceive, to manage, to be skilled to excel, to comprehend;
A net of craft of eye, heart, kenning and hand.
Thousand-threaded tentaculous intellect
Not easy on a new thing to be wrecked—
Since cautious with ableness, and circumspect
In courage, his mind moved to a new stand,
And only with full wisdom used that hand.

Months of firelight and lamplight of night-times; before-bed
Revelations; a time of learning and little said
On my part, since the Master he was so wise—
Easy the lesson; while the grave night-winds' sighs
At window or up chimney incessant moaning
For dead daylight or for music or fishermen dead.
Dark river voice below heard and lock's overflow.