The Royal Mails
For all its flowers and trailing bowers,
Its singing birds and streams,
This valley's not the blissful spot,
The paradise, it seems.
I don't forget a man I met
Beneath this very tree, -
The cooing of that cushat dove
Brings back his face to me, -
The merest lad, a sullen, sad,
Unhappy soul with eyes half mad,
Most sorrowful to see.
I asked him who he was, and what;
'Twas his affair, he answered, that,
And had no more to say:
'Twas all I'd feared, the tale I heard,
When he at last gave way.
I've not forgot the look he shot
Me through and through with then;
'What loathly land is this!' he cried,
And cursed it for a countryside
Where devils masque as men.
I thought at first his brain was burst,
So senselessly he cried and cursed
And spat with rage and hate;
He writhed to hear the glossy dove
In song among the boughs above
Beside its gentle mate.
His fury passed away at last,
And when his reason came
He told me he was city bred,
A page about the Court, he said,
And coloured up with shame;
It made him wince to own a Prince
Of very famous fame.
'He looked for one with speed and strength
And youth, and picked on me at length
And ordered me to stand
Prepared to leave at break of day,
With letters naught must long delay,
For certain cities far away
Across this lonely land.
'He told me all the roads to take
And cautioned me to go
With ears and eyes and wits awake,
Alert from top to toe,
For spies and thieves wore out most shoes
Upon the roads that I must use,
As he had cause to know.
'I took my cloak as morning broke
And started down the hill,
[...] Read more
poem by Ralph Hodgson
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