Explore "Dicky" by Robert Graves on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Mother
Oh, what a heavy sigh! / Dicky, are you ailing?
Dicky
Even by this fireside, mother, / My heart is failing.
To-night across the down, / Whistling and jolly, / I sauntered out from town / With my stick of holly.
Bounteous and cool from sea / The wind was blowing, / Cloud shadows under the moon / Coming and going.
I sang old roaring songs, / Ran and leaped quick, / And turned home by St. Swithin's / Twirling my stick.
And there as I was passing / The churchyard gate / An old man stopped me, "Dicky, / You're walking late."
I did not know the man, / I grew afeared / At his lean lolling jaw, / His spreading beard.
His garments old and musty, / Of antique cut, / His body very lean and bony, / His eyes tight shut.
Oh, even to tell it now / My courage ebbs. / His face was clay, mother, / His beard, cobwebs.
In that long horrid pause / "Good-night," he said, / Entered and clicked the gate, / "Each to his bed."
Mother
Do not sigh or fear, Dicky, / How is it right / To grudge the dead their ghostly dark / And wan moonlight?
We have the glorious sun, / Lamp and fireside. / Grudge not the dead their moonshine / When abroad they ride.