Lay hoar upon the grass. There came on Hugh
A picture, vivid in the moment’s thrill,
Of martialed corn-shocks marching up a hill
And spiked fields dotted with the pumpkin’s gold.
It vanished; and, a-shiver with the cold,
He brooded on the mockeries of Chance,
The shrewd malignity of Circumstance
That either gave too little or too much.
Yet, with the fragment of a hope for crutch,
His spirit rallied, and he rose to go,