Bibhukalyan Acharya/Pexels

• A Town Window
• Beyond my window in the night
•     Is but a drab inglorious street, 
• Yet there the frost and clean starlight
•     As over Warwick woods are sweet.

• Under the grey drift of the town
•     The crocus works among the mould 
• As eagerly as those that crown
•     The Warwick spring in flame and gold.

• And when the tramway down the hill
•     Across the cobbles moans and rings, 
• There is about my window-sill
•     The tumult of a thousand wings.

• Deer
• Shy in their herding dwell the fallow deer.
• They are spirits of wild sense. Nobody near
• Comes upon their pastures. There a life they live,
• Of sufficient beauty, phantom, fugitive,
• Treading as in jungles free leopards do,
• Printless as evelight, instant as dew.
• The great kine are patient, and home-coming sheep
• Know our bidding. The fallow deer keep
• Delicate and far their counsels wild,
• Never to be folded reconciled
• To the spoiling hand as the poor flocks are;
• Lightfoot, and swift, and unfamiliar,
• These you may not hinder, unconfined
• Beautiful flocks of the mind.

• The Toll-Gate House
• The toll-gate’s gone, but still stands lone, 
• In the dip of the hill, the house of stone, 
• And over the roof in the branching pine 
• The great owl sits in the white moonshine. 
• An old man lives, and lonely, there, 
• His windows yet on the cross-roads stare, 
• And on Michaelmas night in all the years 
• A galloping far and faint he hears. . . . 
• His casement open wide he flings 
• With “Who goes there,” and a lantern swings. . . . 
• But never more in the dim moonbeam 
• Than a cloak and a plume and the silver gleam 
• Of passing spurs in the night can he see, 
• For the toll-gate’s gone and the road is free.

• Hereafter
• One evening, by some hearth, I know not when, 
• A stranger to my song shall come to read 
• What faring was my lot through times and men, 
• How I was proud, how sorry, with what heed 
• I was glad of women, and the stars, and corn 
• Swelling upon my windy Cotswold height, 
• What miracles I counted in the morn, 
• And how I was defeated at the night. 
• And he shall make some story, as I make 
• Of men who sang as Marvell and as Donne, 
• And he shall quick his wisdom for my sake, 
• And put the plumes of celebration on, 
• And tell how, as of old, the clouded brain 
• Of man in song was a bright heaven again.

John Drinkwater

John Drinkwater (1882-1937) was an English poet and playwright who began publishing verse in 1906 with his volume The Death of Leander. In addition to verse, he also wrote criticism, although he is perhaps best remembered for his plays, including his 1918 drama Abraham Lincoln, which was received with critical acclaim and became one of the first plays to be adapted for screen. The movie version, a two-reel short film, appeared in 1924. Drinkwater followed up his success with Lincoln by penning other historically-themed works for stage, such as Mary Stuart and Oliver Cromwell, which were also well received. Before turning to writing, Drinkwater tried his hand at insurance sales, but found the work unsatisfying. He was counted among the Georgian Poets, whose work, defined by sentimentality and regularly structured verse forms, appeared in a series of anthologies between 1911 and 1922.