Time was (in Dorsetshire) I loved the trade;
Far other is this battle in the waste,
Wherein, each night, though not of course afraid,
I wriggle round with ill-concealed distaste,
Where who can say what menace is not nigh,
What ambushed foe, what unexploded crump,
And the glad worm, aspiring to the sky,
Emerges suddenly and makes you jump.
Where either all is still, so still one feels
That something huge must presently explode,