PEEPING TOM

Out of the land He grew as grows the weed, But had no land For his own need. He to a farmer His crafty sinews hired, Rising up early And going home tired For six days of the week— Poor Tom!—and said on Sunday, Leaning over a gate: ‘To-morrow be Monday.’ Few were his thoughts, Devious, and unexpressed; Yet one strong yearning Swelled in his breast Through rain and shine, Through months of earthly labour; Till at last he spoke His thought to a neighbour. ‘I should like well To have some land of my own, To be my land And mine alone: ‘Say, half an acre— More would outdo my means— To grow potatoes And a few beans.’ Up at the Inn His neighbour made it known How Tom wished For land of his own. About the village To all men’s ears it ran; The farmer heard it, Who was a rich man. Green water-meadows, Large barns, deep fields he had; His servant’s wish Made his heart glad, For he in plenty Was rooted like an oak; And Tom’s half-acre Seemed a good joke. He gave the ground. And all men said of him He could well afford To have his whim. The plot of ground which the farmer gave Did not cost him dear. All unfenced and untilled it lay, And far away From cottage and inland tree; Where the rolling down rears up like a great slow wave And then falls sheer Four hundred feet to the sea. Thither poor Tom, His day’s toil over, would walk; And marked, and swaled, And scratched on the chalk— Too much intent To note the oncome of night Till to ease his back He stood upright. And plodding homeward Through nurtured fields, his mind Still delved in the patch He had left behind. Sea-winds blew there, Sea-birds flew there, Nothing grew there Save the inherent tares of barren ground; Grasses shrivelled and stiff, And frantic thistles scattering their seed. Claw-rooted was each necessitous weed And salt to the taste, For the blown rack groped over the waste, And evermore the sea with a trampling sound Beleaguered the cliff. A row of beans Was the first thing Tom set. Most died: the rest The rabbits ate. He gave up beer And saved to buy a fence. His wife blamed him For having no sense; And all his friends That saw him study and grieve— Landless themselves— Laughed in their sleeve. Tom heard them out; He did not say them Nay, But still to his patch Went day by day, Disheartened, perhaps, But redeless to forgo The dogged dream He had cherished so. And little thought His straitened brain-pan knew Save only that There was much to do. From the beginning The weeds had been his bane, And tilling the ground Made them as bad again. He groaned aloud To see how they would thrive Where nothing he planted Could keep alive; And fresh weeds grew That had not grown before; For each he spudded There sprang ten more, That bloomed in his face As if from very spite. It chanced, such a blossom Caught his sight Just as he struck work. His back was aching so That he was half-minded To let it go, But from long habit, With look indifferent, Above the invader Wearily he bent To root it up: His face by slow degrees Awakened, He went on his knees— There is no beauty like the beauty of the wild, That blossoms suddenly out of the bare hillside. It is the barren woman that goes with child, It is the clenched knot of necessity untied, Eternity waylaid, and labouring creation Into forgetfulness and laughter beguiled: A relenting, a reconciliation, a glimpse of the bride, Nature, hidden under her dark veils of Time and Space and Causation. Out of the hillside a word: ‘Lo, here I am! Quick, gather my secret, cried— Had you not come—to the waste, from pole to pole To echo forever unheard. Had I died, had I died, Perished had with me, unguessed, the clue of the whole. But now are the heavens opened, and Salvation Is sprung up like a flower cut of the earth. Look! I am newly-made, the dew of my birth Is of the womb of the morning; I hold in my wide- open petals the epitome of that blue In seas drowned, in distance secluded, in air enskied: And all, all is for you. Come! Kneel beside me and unlearn your soul.’ Ah, not for man the message, the revelation! On hillsides desolate and bare, by paths untravelled, In swamps, and skyey wastes the tokens are spilled. Wild beauty like a bird flits here and there, Homes not to hand nor snare, and nowhere settles. Who’s he shall augur from her flight? And who shall dare Unravel the plain speech of five blue petals? Not man’s mind, that chooseth a good Obsequious to the God his proud heart hath chosen, That parteth light from darkness and right from wrong, Nor brooketh the unfulfilled. Let him tread out the blossom and ignore the song And go upon his way. But some there are who hearken, who stay, Who kneel and worship before the undesigned, And all their strength relinquish to obey A voice that seeks not to be understood— No, nor yet purpose has enough to be a mock. Awhile they feed on brightness; but ere long They find their hearts astray, and their blood frozen, And know themselves averted from their kind. Extremity of light has made them blind. With look so vacant as to seem serene, They wander towards darkness, and as they go Idly a few belated berries glean, Or darnel and the clammy nightshade wreathe, Or to themselves speak low; And in the end lie down upon the rock, And to the heedless air their last loud groan bequeath. Darkness rose up out of the deep; Headland by headland along the coast Lost colour, shape, identity, stole from sight, Folded in darkness like a flock of sheep. Up on the height The flower ebbed from his vision like a ghost, And Tom went home to sleep. Changed henceforward was his mood. All he’d endeavoured, all he’d planned Forgetting, his mind at ease, he would sit awhile To watch the gulls, or stretched full-length would brood; And camomile, Chance-plucked, chafed for its savour in his hand, And thyme or fennel chewed. Mildly now he could behold Thistle and coney flourish unchecked. The unequal combat relinquishing he let fall His spade, or only dug to smell the mould; But joys past all Former surmise he harvested from neglect, That joyed nor reaped of old. Sweetness had pierced him like a dart. Careless of duty, afield he ranged, And spared with fostering hand the weeds amid The farmer’s crops, such wonder was in his heart. The farmer chid— And swore the politicians were deranged To take the labourer’s part. Christmas came, and quarter-day; ‘Goodwill to all men’ chanted the choir, ‘And on earth, peace.’ The earth in a riveted black Frost fast bound like a cataleptic lay. The times were slack. The farmer said to Tom: ‘I don’t require Servants not worth their pay.’ Household shipwreck disposing as best He could, since none near by would employ Such a half-wit, on a tramp for work he set out; Of more than land and livelihood dispossessed, For care and doubt Sat plotting deep in his heart that his secret joy Might vade with all the rest. Everywhere rejected, he turned Onward by darkening ways and grim Gaunt woodlands where yet would kindle from bough to bough The irresistible wildfire of spring for which he had yearned. Small difference now ’Twixt leaves unborn or dead underfoot to him Whom spring no more concerned. Lengthening days would but strengthen his care, Nor spring be even what once it had been— A dazzle in dull eyes, chance heart-thrust of a bird’s song, Hint of a covenanted joy all creatures share; For he too long Had watched a wildflower’s visage, and had seen No hope, no purpose there. Whither he went, And what the welcome he found, Or if he yet Were above ground, Came never word. His name was clean forgot; Unless folk said Tom was a bad lot. Many years after, His tale was told to me. I for a whim Went off to see Tom’s patch, but might Have sought in vain for it Had not my foot Caught in a bit Of galvanised netting— Good heartless shop-stuff, wrought To outlast man And man’s thought. I gave it a kick; And after one more look, Moved off to find Some sheltered nook Where I might sit And watch the seagulls fly. All that afternoon No one came by, Save one old man Scarcely more human than they— And he, I think, Had lost his way. For as he went He’d stop and look about, And shake his head, As if in doubt Of where he was; And once, as though he’d read The answer there, Pulled up a weed And peered at it Full steadfastly—and then Throwing it down, Limped on again.