Women He Liked
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OMEN he liked, did shovel-bearded Bob,Old Farmer Hayward of the Heath, but heLoved horses. He himself was like a cob,And leather-coloured. Also he loved a tree. For the life in them he loved most living things,But a tree chiefly. All along the laneHe planted elms where now the stormcock singsThat travellers hear from the slow-climbing train. Till then the track had never had a nameFor all its thicket and the nightingalesThat should have earned it. No one was to blame.To name a thing beloved man sometimes fails. Many years since, Bob Hayward died, and nowNone passes there because the mist and the rainOut of the elms have turned the lane to sloughAnd gloom, the name alone survives, Bob's Lane.
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