The New Year by Edward Thomas — Past Poetry archive

He was the one man I met up in the woods That stormy New Year’s morning; and at first sight, Fifty yards off, I could not tell how much Of the strange tripod was a man. His body, Bowed horizontal, was supported equally By legs at one end, by a rake at the other: Thus he rested, far less like a man than His wheel-barrow in profile was like a pig. But when I saw it was an old man bent, At the same moment came into my mind The games at which boys bend thus, High-Cockalorum , Or Fly-the-garter , and Leap-frog . At the sound Of footsteps he began to straighten himself; His head rolled under his cape like a tortoise’s; He took an unlit pipe out of his mouth Politely ere I wished him “A Happy New Year,” And with his head cast upward sideways muttered⁠— So far as I could hear through the trees’ roar⁠— “Happy New Year, and may it come fastish, too,” While I strode by and he turned to raking leaves.