.....
"You'd scarcely credit it, I knew
A man in this same house, low down,
Who owns a fish-shop now—believe
Me, or believe me not," said Brown.
"He was a civil sort of cove,
But did queer things, for one low down:
Oft have I watched him clean his teeth—
As true as Heaven's above!" cried Brown.
This humorous quality is the most marked form of an attitude of detachment which may be observed in most of the personal pieces. So complete is this detachment sometimes, as in "Strange People" or "Scotty Bill" or "Facts," that one is tempted to a heresy. Is it possible, in view of this lightness of touch, this untroubled pace and coolness of word and phrase, that the poet did not see the implications of what he was recording, or seeing them, was not greatly moved by them? Now there are certain passages which prove that that doubt is a heresy: that the poet did perceive and feel the complete significance of the facts he was handling. Otherwise, of course, he were no poet. There is evidence of this in such a poem as "A Blind Child," from which I quote a couple of stanzas:
We're in the garden, where are bees
And flowers, and birds, and butterflies;
There is one greedy fledgling cries
For all the food his parent sees!
I see them all: flowers of all kind,
The sheep and cattle on the leas;
The houses up the hills, and trees—
But I am dumb, for she is blind.
There is, too, the last stanza of "Facts," a narrative piece which relates the infamous treatment by workhouse officials of an old and dying man:
Since Jesus came with mercy and love,
'Tis nineteen hundred years and five:
They made that dying man break stones,
In faith that Christ is still alive.