since that time, he wanders shore and shire, An old, poor, wandering man, with glittering eyes Helping distressful folk to their desire By power of spirit that within him lies. Gentle he is, and quiet, and most wise, He wears a ragged grey, he sings sweet words, And where he walks there flutter little birds. And when the planets glow as dusk begins He pipes a wooden flute to music old. Men hear him on the downs, in lonely inns, In valley woods, or up the Chiltern wold; His piping feeds the starved and warms the cold, It gives the beaten courage; to the lost [Pg 9]It brings back faith, that lodestar of the ghost. And most he haunts the beech-tree-pasturing chalk, The Downs and Chilterns with the Thames between. There still the Berkshire shepherds see him walk, Searching the unhelped woe with instinct keen, His old hat stuck with never-withering green, His flute in poke, and little singings sweet Coming from birds that flutter at his feet. Not long ago a circus wandered there, Where good King Cole most haunts the public way, Coming from Reading for St. Giles's Fair Through rain unceasing since Augustine's Day; The horses spent, the waggons splashed with clay, The men with heads bowed to the wester roaring, Heaving the van-wheels up the hill at Goring. Wearily plodding up the hill they went, Broken by bitter weather and the luck, Six vans, and one long waggon with the tent, [Pg 10]And piebald horses following in the muck, Dragging their tired hooves out with a suck, And heaving on, like some defeated tribe Bound for Despair with Death upon their kibe. All through the morn the circus floundered thus, The nooning found them at the Crossing Roads, Stopped by an axle splitting in its truss. The horses drooped and stared before their loads. Dark with the wet they were, and cold as toads. The men were busy with the foundered van, The showman stood apart, a beaten man. He did not heed the dripping of the rain, Nor the wood's roaring, nor the blotted hill, He stood apart and bit upon his pain, Biting the bitter meal with bitter will. Focussed upon himself, he stood, stock still, Staring unseeing, while his mind repeated, "This is the end; I'm ruined; I'm defeated."  From time to time a haggard woman's face Peered at him from a van, and then withdrew; [Pg 11]

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