Esther A. Whitmarsh

AND will you hear the proof now

Of immortality?

An old English tinker

Is come to life in me.

His feet were on the highroad

When buds and bees were young;

Many a traveller since then

Has hummed the songs he sung.

He wakened to the bird notes

We hear through window bars—

Vagrant son of the countryside,

Who slept under the stars.

He sat beneath the hedgerows

To eat his bread and cheese—

Every English springtime

Is built of things like these.

I cannot leave off wondering

That such a one as he,

With all the world to choose from,

Should come to live in me.