William Ernest Henley

In Hospital. 12. Etching

Two and thirty is the ploughman.
He’s a man of gallant inches,
And his hair is close and curly,
      And his beard;
But his face is wan and sunken,
And his eyes are large and brilliant,
And his shoulder-blades are sharp,
      And his knees.

He is weak of wits, religious,
Full of sentiment and yearning,
Gentle, faded—with a cough
      And a snore.
When his wife (who was a widow,
And is many years his elder)
Fails to write, and that is always,
      He desponds.

Let his melancholy wander,
And he’ll tell you pretty stories
Of the women that have wooed him
      Long ago;
Or he’ll sing of bonnie lasses
Keeping sheep among the heather,
With a crackling, hackling click
      In his voice.