Eternal gratitude—a long, thin word:
When meant, oftenest left unheard:
When light on the tongue, light in the purse too:
Of curious metallurgy: when coined true
It glitters not, is neither large nor small:
More worth than rubies—less, times, than a ball.
Not gift, nor willed: yet through its wide range
Buys what it buys exact, and leaves no change.
Old Gurney had it, won on a hot day
With ale, from glib-voiced Gypsy by the way.
He held it lightly: for ’twas a rum start
To find a hedgeling who had still a heart:
So put it down for twist of a beggar’s tongue...
He had not felt the heat: how the dust stung
A face June-roasted: he saw not the look
Aslant the gift-mug; how the hand shook...
Yet the words rang his head, and he grew merry
And whistled from the Boar to Wrye-brook ferry,
And chaffed with Ferryman when the hawser creakt
Or slipping bilge showed where the planks leakt:
Lent hand himself, till doubly hard the barge
Butted its nose in mud of the farther marge.
When Gurney leapt to shore, he found—dismay!
He had no tuppence—(Tuppence was to pay
To sulky Ferryman)—‘Naught have I,’ says he,
‘Naught, but the gratitude of Tammas Lee
Given one hour.’—Sulky Charon grinned:
‘Done,’ said he. ‘Done: I take—all of it, mind.’
‘Done,’ cries Jan Gurney. Down the road he went,
But by the ford left all his merriment.
This is the tale of midday chaffering:
How Charon took, and Gurney lost the thing:
How Ferryman gave it for his youngest daughter
To a tall lad who saved her out of water—
(Being old and mean, had none of his own to give,
So passed on Tammas’; glad to see her live):
And how young Farmer paid his quarter’s rent
With that one coin, when all else was spent,
And how Squire kept it for some goldless debt...
For aught I know, it wanders current yet.
Yet Tammas was no angel in disguise:
He stole Squire’s chickens—often: he told lies,
Robbed Charon’s garden, burnt young Farmer’s ricks
And played the village many lowsy tricks.
No children sniffled, and no dog cried
When full of oaths and smells, he died.
JUDY
Sand hot to haunches:
Sun beating eyes down,
Yet they peer under lashes
At the hill’s crown:
See how the hill slants
Up the sky halfway:
Over the top tall clouds
Poke gold and grey.
Down: see a green field
Tipped on its short edge,
Its upper rim straggled round
By a black hedge.
Grass bright as new brass:
Uneven dark gorse
Stuck to its own shadow
Like Judy that black horse.