The Mole-Catcher
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hen melted snow leaves bare the black-green rings,And grass begins in freshening hues to shoot,When thawing dirt to shoes of ploughmen clings,And silk-haired moles get liberty to root,An ancient man goes plodding round the fieldsWhich solitude seems claiming as her own,Wrapt in greatcoat that from a tempest shields,Patched thick with every colour but its own. With spuds and traps and horsehair string supplied,He potters out to seek each fresh-made hill;Pricking the greensward where they love to hide,He sets his treacherous snares, resolved to kill;And on the willow sticks bent to the grass,That such as touched jerk up in bouncing springs,Soon the little hermit tries to pass,His carcass on the gibbet hings. And as a triumph to his matchless skill,On some grey willow where a road runs by,That passers may behold his power to kill,On the bough's twigs he'll many a felon tie;On every common dozens may be met,Dangling on bent twigs bleaching to the sun,Whose melancholy faces meet no regret,Though dreamless of the snare they could not shun. On moors and commons and the pasture green,He leaves them undisturbed to root and run,Enlarging hills that have for ages beenBasking in mossy swellings to the sun;The pismires too their tip-tops yearly climbTo lay their eggs and hunt the shepherd's crumbs,Never disturbed save when for summer thymeThe trampling sheep upon their dwelling comes.
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