Country Sentiment

TOM TAYLOR.

     On pay-day nights, neck-full with beer,
     Old soldiers stumbling homeward here,
     Homeward (still dazzled by the spark
     Love kindled in some alley dark)
     Young soldiers mooning in slow thought,
     Start suddenly, turn about, are caught
     By a dancing sound, merry as a grig,
     Tom Taylor's piccolo playing jig.
     Never was blown from human cheeks
     Music like this, that calls and speaks
     Till sots and lovers from one string
     Dangle and dance in the same ring.
     Tom, of your piping I've heard said
     And seen—that you can rouse the dead,
     Dead-drunken men awash who lie
     In stinking gutters hear your cry,
     I've seen them twitch, draw breath, grope, sigh,
     Heave up, sway, stand; grotesquely then
     You set them dancing, these dead men.
     They stamp and prance with sobbing breath,
     Victims of wine or love or death,
     In ragged time they jump, they shake
     Their heads, sweating to overtake
     The impetuous tune flying ahead.
     They flounder after, with legs of lead.
     Now, suddenly as it started, play
     Stops, the short echo dies away,
     The corpses drop, a senseless heap,
     The drunk men gaze about like sheep.
     Grinning, the lovers sigh and stare
     Up at the broad moon hanging there,
     While Tom, five fingers to his nose,
     Skips off...And the last bugle blows.