A Recollection

TWO POEMS

A RECOLLECTION

When I was seven I lived with my father and mother

In Ireland; and there comes to mind through the heat

And haze a coaching-trip of that boyhood summer,

When I set off cock-a-hoop on the high box-seat.

The coachman was big and hairy and knowing like God;

He held the reins, his huge hands governed us all;

At his bidding clattered away in the brisk morning

Sixteen hooves on the road to Cushendall.

In all my parts I felt the slow pull up-hill

Of the horses, the grind of stones as the harsh wheels

rolled,

The last back-breaking strain to the top of the ridge,

Then the downward rush with the air feeling suddenly cold.

The coachman's wide foot bore down on the loud brake.

I braced against him, feeling his iron thigh

And the wind that stung my eyes and the tingling joy.

Then the sun grew hot and things went more slowly by-

Patient gates ajar on the glare of the pastures,

A horse in the dark of a tree that I said was blue-

But the coachman said, No, it was white; and I drank his

wisdom,

From his broad beneficent beard I knew that he knew.

Then he let me take the reins; vainglory enwreathed me;

I braced till my legs ached; and then I began to weep,

For evening came on and the box was grievous beneath me,

And-"Sh!" cried my mother, "at Cushendall ye shall

sleep."

Then grandly the coachman pointed with his whip-stock

To where the next hill rose like a dark wall

Between us and world's end, and on its thick flank

We saw the comforting lights of Cushendall.