Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch
    The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch
    The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch
    Ebook122 pages1 hour

    The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch

    By R. C. (Rudolf Chambers) Lehmann

    ()

    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 15, 2013
    The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch

    Related to The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch

    Related ebooks

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      It’s Come to This

      Sep 1, 2021

      It’s Come to This
      16 min read

    • Article

      Competition

      Aug 25, 2021

      IN COMPETITION No 270, you were invited to write a poem called The Hall. Heather Oxley began, ‘Our halls are gateways to our outside selves.’ John Oldershaw’s narrator started in medias res: ‘“It’s the hall that sells the house!”/ Said Mr Valentine,

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Island (catullus 64)

      Mar 1, 2022

      Back then the evergreens tumbled downriverfrom the glaze-white runoff to the boot-stirred puddlesof amber young men who fulfilled our destiny,who clambered into ships, on horses, and in wagonspainting the newfound landscapes ours.Our calling was nobl

      9 min read

    • Article

      Tessa Castro

      Jun 30, 2021

      IN COMPETITION No 268, you were invited to write a poem with the title The Writing on the Wall. Anthony Young observed of the makers of those great spray-paint tags that we see from trains, ‘They paint their aims with aerosol,/Abiding to the protocol

      2 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems by Joseph Brodsky

      May 12, 2020

      Two Poems by Joseph Brodsky
      7 min read

    • Article

      Tessa Castro

      May 4, 2022

      IN COMPETITION No 279 you were invited to write a poem called Broken Bottle. Basil Ransome-Davies portrayed himself as ‘The man who dropped his wine in Marks’, by Bateman. Mike Morrison’s narrator found that the wind had knocked from the shelf ‘A nov

      2 min read

    • Article

      Tessa Castro

      Mar 9, 2022

      IN COMPETITION No 277 you were invited to write a poem called Morning Sounds. The entries were vivid: half domestic, half outdoor. Tim Lloyd observed that ‘A bin lorry approaching in reverse/Sounds like an asthmatic seal.’ Liz Piper remembered, durin

      2 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Sep 4, 2018

      In London. England. Who knows why?Perhaps this rumpled guyFrom central casting or a page of Dickens.He’s taking ordinary usTo haunts of the illustrious,Where even dull pulse quickens. A red felt hat’s dark fingered brim,Food-spotted vest are—him.A mo

      4 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      May 1, 2019

      “My arm is so brown and so beautiful,” is a thought I haveas I’m about to turn off the lamp and go to sleep.I look at it a moment in the soft glow, and see it, briefly,as though it belonged to someone else. A reddishkind of brown, like a toasted almo

      7 min read

    • Article

      Tessa Castro

      May 3, 2023

      IN COMPETITION No 292 you were invited to write a poem called The Walk. How good and numerous were your entries. Congratulations to those printed below, each of whom wins £25, with the bonus prize of The Chambers Dictionary going to Anthony Young. I'

      2 min read

    • Article

      Tessa Castro

      Oct 20, 2021

      IN COMPETITION No 272, you were invited to write a poem called The Umbrella. The subject brought out such weird imaginings in many competitors that ordinary death seemed mundane. Katie Mallett warned against ‘Hemlocks, brollies to close down / All hu

      2 min read

    • Article

      Tessa Castro

      Aug 24, 2022

      IN COMPETITION No 283 you were invited to write a poem called Things Fall Apart. Martin Brown wrote some close parody of Yeats, and when his shopping bag burst, ‘The best splat all the kitchen, while the walls / Are caught with passionfruit at veloci

      2 min read

    • Article

      Bard In The Woods

      Nov 30, 2020

      Bard In The Woods
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Call Of The Wild

      Nov 30, 2020

      The Call Of The Wild
      2 min read

    • Article

      Tessa Castro

      Jul 26, 2023

      IN COMPETITION No 295 you were invited to write a poem called Roots. Cherry MacGregor started off in medias res: ‘Has the vine died? My husband had asked,/ As we enjoyed lunch in the garden.’ Another excellent opening came from DM Davis: ‘Roots, oh m

      2 min read

    • Article

      from 36 WAYS OF WRITING A VIETNAMESE POEM

      Feb 28, 2023

      You can’t go far wrong with violence.You’ll go far, my boy.You’ll cross oceans, my boy. Start with the Fall, go back or forth,Through bombs or boats,Across all the killing fields of thought. You can’t make it upBecause it’s all yours—by blood.By righ

      4 min read

    • Article

      In Memory Of Derek Alton Walcott

      Mar 15, 2018

      1 Island traffic slows to a haltas screeching gulls reluctantto lift heavenwardcongregate like mourners in saltcrustedkelp, as the repellentnews spreads to colder shores: Sir Derek is no more.Bandwidths, clogged by streamingtributes, carry the pitcho

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Best Rain in Literature

      Apr 14, 2020

      The Best Rain in Literature
      11 min read

    • Article

      The Power And The Passion

      Sep 19, 2021

      The Power And The Passion
      4 min read

    • Article

      Odd Jobs

      Jul 19, 2017

      Odd Jobs
      3 min read

    • Article

      Twists And Turns

      Aug 19, 2019

      Twists And Turns
      2 min read

    • Article

      DULCE DOMUM From The Wind In The Willows

      Nov 1, 2022

      DULCE DOMUM From The Wind In The Willows
      11 min read

    • Article

      Ghost Girl, Banana

      Aug 21, 2023

      By the time I was 25, there were only two things I remembered about Mumma. The first was that she smelled of watermelons, the second was that we were happy. We’d taken our father’s name of course, but a name is only half a story. The other half exist

      6 min read

    • Article

      Stop Hating on Adjectives!

      Jun 12, 2019

      A common admonition in creative writing pedagogy is, “Cut as many adjectives as possible.” I propose that this rule springs from mere prejudice. The post Stop Hating on Adjectives! appeared first on The Millions.

      7 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Jan 1, 2022

      The painting is of a door, its wood so warpedwith moisture it cannot close. It stays ajar leaving a sliver of light—enough to suggestsomething sweet and almost unreachable behind the door—and you sit in yourroom working on the bills or those comforti

      4 min read

    • Article

      Tessa Castro

      Feb 7, 2024

      IN COMPETITION No 302 you were invited to write a poem called The Doormat. Most of your doormats were metaphorical, but instead of a Welcome doormat, Jenny Jones’s narrator concluded, ‘What I need’s a mat to shout: / “Go Away”, “Be Off”, “Keep Out”!’

      2 min read

    • Article

      Air Rights

      Nov 1, 2020

      The French Church—never much on looks, red brick leaningin the direction of Romanesque—settled into modest circumstanceshow many decades on West 16th?Nothing divine in the details,veneer peeling from doors nevermeant for here, never open. No light,ev

      4 min read

    • Article

      Tessa Castro

      Feb 9, 2022

      IN COMPETITION No 276, you were invited to write a poem called The Carpet. Dan Rubinstein told of a rock band’s drummer stopping on a tour to buy some carpet to stop his bass drum wandering. Dorothy Pope’s poem was about being ‘coventrated’, carpet-b

      2 min read

    Reviews for The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch - R. C. (Rudolf Chambers) Lehmann

      Project Gutenberg's The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch, by R. C. Lehmann

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

      Title: The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch

      Author: R. C. Lehmann

      Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8433] This file was first posted on July 9, 2003 Last Updated: May 14, 2013

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VAGABOND AND OTHER POEMS ***

      Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, Charles Bidwell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

      THE VAGABOND AND OTHER POEMS FROM PUNCH

      By R. C. Lehmann

      Author of Anni Fugaces, Crumbs Of Pity, And Light And Shade

      London: John Lane, The Bodley Head

      New York: John Lane Company MCMXVIII

      Printed in Great Britain by Tumbull & Spears, Edinburgh

      NOTE

      All but two of the pieces here printed appeared originally in Punch. My thanks are due to Messrs Bradbury, Agnew & Co., the Proprietors of Punch, for permitting me to reprint them here. For Wilma was first published in Blackwood's Magazine, and appears here by the courtesy of the Editor.

      R. C. L.

      CONTENTS

      THE VAGABOND SINGING WATER FOR WILMA CRAGWELL END THE BIRD IN THE ROOM KILLED IN ACTION EPITAPH TO FLIGHT-LIEUTENANT ROBINSON, V.C. PAGAN FANCIES ROBIN, THE SEA-BOY THE BIRTHDAY THE DANCE PANSIES THE DRAGON OF WINTER HILL FLUFFY, A CAT THE LEAN-TO SHED THE CONTRACT JOHN THE SPARROW GELERT AVE, CAESAR! SOO-TI THE BATH PETER, A PEKINESE PUPPY THE DOGS' WELCOME ODE TO JOHN BRADBURY TEETH-SETTING THE DEATH OF EUCLID TO POSTUMUS IN OCTOBER A RAMSHACKLE ROOM THE LAST STRAW THE OLD GREY MARE AT PUTNEY A LITTLE BIT OF BLUE THE LAST COCK-PHEASANT IN MEMORIAM

      THE VAGABOND

      It was deadly cold in Danbury town

        One terrible night in mid November,

        A night that the Danbury folk remember

      For the sleety wind that hammered them down,

      That chilled their faces and chapped their skin,

        And froze their fingers and bit their feet,

      And made them ice to the heart within,

            And spattered and scattered

            And shattered and battered

      Their shivering bodies about the street;

      And the fact is most of them didn't roam

      In the face of the storm, but stayed at home;

      While here and there a policeman, stamping

      To keep himself warm or sedately tramping

      Hither and thither, paced his beat;

      Or peered where out of the blizzard's welter

      Some wretched being had crept to shelter,

      And now, drenched through by the sleet, a muddled

      Blur of a man and his rags, lay huddled.

      But one there was who didn't care,

      Whatever the furious storm might dare,

      A wonderful, hook-nosed bright-eyed fellow

      In a thin brown cape and a cap of yellow

      That perched on his dripping coal-black hair.

      A red scarf set off his throat and bound him,

      Crossing his breast, and, winding round him,

            Flapped at his flank

            In a red streak dank;

      And his hose were red, with a purple sheen

      From his tunic's blue, and his shoes were green.

      He was most outlandishly patched together

      With ribbons of silk and tags of leather,

      And chains of silver and buttons of stone,

      And knobs of amber and polished bone,

      And a turquoise brooch and a collar of jade,

      And a belt and a pouch of rich brocade,

      And a gleaming dagger with inlaid blade

      And jewelled handle of burnished gold

      Rakishly stuck in the red scarf's fold—

      A dress, in short, that might suit a wizard

            On a calm warm day

            In the month of May,

      But was hardly fit for an autumn blizzard.

      Whence had he come there? Who could say,

      As he swung through Danbury town that day,

        With a friendly light in his deep-set eyes,

      And his free wild gait and his upright bearing,

        And his air that nothing could well surprise,

      So bright it was and so bold and daring?

      He might have troubled the slothful ease

        Of the Great Mogul in a warlike fever;

      He might have bled for the Maccabees,

          Or risen, spurred

          By the Prophet's word,

      And swooped on the hosts of the unbeliever.

      Whatever his birth and his nomenclature,

        Something he seemed to have, some knowledge

        That never was taught at school or college,

      But was part of his very being's nature:

        Some ingrained lore that wanderers show

        As over the earth they come and go,

        Though they hardly know what it is they know.

      And so with his head upheld he walked,

        And ever the rain drove down;

      And now and again to himself he talked

        In the streets of Danbury town.

      And now and again he'd stop and troll

      A stave of music that seemed to roll

      From the inmost depths of his ardent soul;

      But the wind took hold of the notes and tossed them

      And the few who chanced to be near him lost them.

      So, moving on where his fancy listed,

      He came to a street that turned and twisted;

      And there by a shop-front dimly lighted

      He suddenly stopped as though affrighted,

      Stopped and stared with his deep gaze centred

      On something seen, like a dream's illusion,

      Through the streaming glass, mid the queer confusion

      Of objects littered on shelf and floor,

      And about the counter and by the door—

      And then with his lips set tight he entered.

      There were rusty daggers and battered breastplates,

      And jugs of pewter and carved oak cases,

      And china monsters with hideous faces,

      And cracked old plates that had once been best plates;

      And needle-covers and such old-wivery;

      Wonderful chess-men made from ivory;

      Cut-glass bottles

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1