JACK

DC

Jack was quite as much a part of the village as the

church spire ;
And if any of us lazied along by the river in the dusk

of the evening—
Waving aside nebulae of gnats.

Turning head quickly at the splash of a jumping fish,
Peering where the water chuckled over a vanishing

water-rat—
And saw not Jack's familiar form bending over his

lines.

And smelt not his vile shag,
We should feel a loneliness, a vague impression that

something was wrong.

For ten years Jack was always the same,
Never growing older, 10
Or richer,
Or tidier,
Never knowing that we had a certain pride in possess-
ing him.
Then there came a tempter with tales of easily
acquired wealth, and Jack went away in his
company.
XI
He has never come back,
And now the village is like a man who has lost an eye.
In the gloaming, no slouching figure, with colossal
idleness in every line, leans against my garden
wall, with prophecies of the morrow's weather ;
And those who reviled Jack most wonder now what
it was they found fault with.
We feel our bereavement deeply.
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