A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919/Mopsus
MOPSUS
A September Idyll
Quoniam convenimus ambo . . . Incipe, Mopse, prior.—Virgil.
HE was lounging over the stubble on a slope of St. Catherine's Hill,
While the old swine grubbed contented, and the young pigs took their fill
Of the sweet corn grains that had fallen, and he found me under the hedge,
Looking up to the tower-crowned summit and down far over the ledge
Of the Downs to the vale of Medina and the reedy bed of the Yar,
And the mainland, a shadow; and one white gleam of the Solent afar;
Mopsus, whose name was Marvin ("Joe Marvin," I think he said),
An urchin just turned fourteen, with a round and hard-looking head,
But a not unintelligent face, for he certainly was no fool,
And they'd taught him a thing or two at a Spartan village-school
Where force was not out of fashion: "They clouted ma sisterr—she's slow
To pick up 'er learrning—on th' 'ead with a book—the teacherrs, ye know."—
Mopsus, the name just suits him, an ungainly brand of boy,
With a cheerful grin that marked him to grow up a hobble-de-hoy,
If it weren't for a certain humour, a something quaint in his talk,
A familiar twinkle, a manner of ease, a deliberate walk.
And he leaned on a broken pitch-fork ("To clout them," I told him in chaff,
"Now you're on top!") as Eumaeus of old might have leant on his staff.
"And what do you think of, Mopsus?" the conventional poet must ask;
"Is it some of the songs they taught you—the pleasant part of your task
In that school where they clout the backward—of the noon-day bee that hums
So drowsy——" "Aw noa," quoth Mopsus, "a'm mostly thinkin' o' sums."
"What, just arithmetic? Stuff that you learned in the standards?" "Aw yuss,
An' a' arst ma dad fur a cycle—three poun', an' 'e make no fuss,
No more nor as if I arst 'im fur a five-shillun pair of shoes,
An'—parrdon, but, sirr, have ye read the paper?—'s ther any noos
O' the Dardanelles? Ma brotherr the Isle o' Wight Rifles 'e joined,
An' there's lots of 'em killed a'ready, that last big landing, you moind,
Wi' the 'Stralians an' Noo Zealan's; but ma brotherr 'e's not killed yet."—
(Mopsus, lightest of heart, unfeelingest!)"—Maister, ut's wet,
That bit o' long grass whur ye're sittun', an' yesterday, would ye believe,
A' sat wi' ma coat aside me, an' a' hearrd just under ma sleeve
A kind o' a noise o' whustlun, an' a' reached out after ut so,
An' 'twas thurr in ma pocket—a' drew out quick—'twas an adderr, ye know."
(I rose rather hastily.) "Mopsus, there's always an adder," I thought,
"In all the pleasantest hedges, so the tedious wise have taught,"
But I said, "Good-bye, Joe Marvin," and stooped to pick up my hat.
"But say, do you never feel lonely and just inclined for a chat?"
"Aw noa," he grinned, "a'm talkun wi' myself most parrt o' the day."
"What, the same old pounds and shillings?"—"Well, ye know, sirr, it's just this way:
Ma father 'e give me ma wages, six shillun'—enough, says he,
Fur a boy just done wi' schoolun'—an' thur's lots to buy, ye see:
Thur's cigarrettes for ma brotherr—anythink but Turrkish 'e like—
An' a bugle—the one a'm learrnun' ain't mine—an' a tyre fur ma bike—
As a' rode up the lane the firrst time, three punctures a' had an' a burrst,
So ye'd best walk down—but a'll show ye the way to the hilltop firrst."
And he pointed over the stubble to a way he'd lately found
That led to the steeper Down-crest by a sheep-track coiling round.
And I saw the lonely ocean with but one destroyer in sight
All round from Ventnor town to the Needles glimmering white,
A squat black beetle-body, sole witness in that wide scene
Of the silent, incredible war with the vanishing submarine;
And was wrapt in the air divine that is unto the body as wings,
And unto the soul quintessence of glad, unspeakable things.
I think that, whenever I breathe it, 'twill bring back a thought of that day—
Of Mopsus flicking the bushes in his slouching, leisurely way,
And the brother of whom he told me, as only fourteen tells,
Whole among thousands mangled at the deathly Dardanelles.
Perhaps on a Turkish hillside he is gazing up at the sky,
As he thinks of the far home-coming and the things that money 'll buy;
And a Spartan school has taught him some other, harder sums,
Which he calculates, like Mopsus, till a day of reckoning comes.
April, 1915.