Here lies the body of
ANTHONY CRUNDLE,
Farmer, of this parish,
Who died in 1849 at the age of 82.
“He delighted in music.”
R. I. P.
And of
SUSAN,
For fifty-three years his wife,
Who died in 1860, aged 86.
Anthony Crundle of Dorrington Wood
Played on a piccolo. Lord was he,
For seventy years, of sheaves that stood
Under the perry and cider tree;
Anthony Crundle, R.I.P.
And because he prospered with sickle and scythe,
With cattle afield and labouring ewe,
Anthony was uncommonly blithe,
And played of a night to himself and Sue;
Anthony Crundle, eighty-two.
The earth to till, and a tune to play,
And Susan for fifty years and three,
And Dorrington Wood at the end of day ...
May providence do no worse by me;
Anthony Crundle, R.I.P.
MAD TOM TATTERMAN
“Old man, grey man, good man scavenger,
Bearing is it eighty years upon your crumpled back?
What is it you gather in the frosty weather,
Is there any treasure here to carry in your sack?”
. . . . . . . . . .
“I’ve a million acres and a thousand head of cattle,
And a foaming river where the silver salmon leap;
But I’ve left fat valleys to dig in sullen alleys
Just because a twisted star rode by me in my sleep.
“I’ve a brain is dancing to an old forgotten music
Heard when all the world was just a crazy flight of dreams,
And don’t you know I scatter in the dirt along the gutter
Seeds that little ladies nursed by Babylonian streams?
“Mad Tom Tatterman, that is how they call me.
Oh, they know so much, so much, all so neatly dressed;
I’ve a tale to tell you—come and listen, will you?—
One as ragged as the twigs that make a magpie’s nest.
“Ragged, oh, but very wise. You and this and that man,
All of you are making things that none of you would lack,
And so your eyes grow dusty, and so your limbs grow rusty—
But mad Tom Tatterman puts nothing in his sack.