The Road at My Door

An affable Irregular,

A heavily-built Falstaffan man,

Comes cracking jokes of civil war

As though to die by gunshot were

The finest play under the sun.

A brown Lieutenant and his men,

Half dressed in national uniform,

Stand at my door, and I complain

Of the foul weather, hail and rain,

A pear tree broken by the storm.

I count those feathered balls of soot

The moor-hen guides upon the stream,

To silence the envy in my thought;

And turn towards my chamber, caught

In the cold snows of a dream.