The Shepherd's Wife: And Other Poems

By Joyce M. Green

A collection of poems reflecting the lifetime’s experiences of an amazing 100 year old lady from Sheffield, England.
Joyce explores a variety of themes ranging from love, tragedy and nostalgia to the beauty of nature and the English countryside.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Dec 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9781684714599

Book preview

come.

A G

ood Drying Day

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How the wet sheets struggle,

Pressing against me to be free.

They fill and swell, pretend they are

What they can never be!

So I - because I also dream

Of lovely ships - grant their desire

And hoist them high among the white-foamed may.

They hurl and crack in the laughing, tumbling wind

Speeding the slim hull through an unknown sea.

Is this why I feel a small regret

When folded, ‘prisoned

As on an ocean floor,

In the dark press again they moveless lie?

In The Provinces

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Come sit by me, here in the shade. That’s better.

You’ll be from the North? … Just visiting. Ah yes.

We live here with our daughter now, in our age.

< She married well. He imports wine and carpets and such things >

And the air is pleasant here, fresh off the sea,

So different from that awful inland heat.

We kept an inn, you know, small but adequate,

Enough to live on and put a little by.

On the road to … . Yes! that’s right. You know it then?

Oh! you passed there once. I don’t recall … …

The Census! Well, that accounts for it.

What is it now? Thirty years? No! thirty-five.

What a time that was!

A crazy scheme of course, but the trade it brought!

My dear, you’d not believe how hard we worked.

They came from everywhere and every room was full.

We even had them sleeping on the floor in rows!

And still they came, we had to turn … … Oh, did we, dear?

I hope you soon found somewhere nice to stay . . …

Such a shame! A fortune we could have made.

And such unusual weather, do you recall?

I never saw the stars blaze so.

At times you could imagine that they sang!

One couple I remember came that night

I couldn’t turn away . They’d come so far.

She never should have been on donkey- back,

Not on those roads, and her so near her time.

Of course, he said we had no room, just like a man!

But when I saw her! -well, what can you do? I said

"You can have the byre if you’ve a mind

To share it with the beasts. There’s just the cow,

An ass of ours and a few belonging to the guests,

And the old dog of course, but she’ll not bother you.

I’ll clear a space for you up at the further end."

She didn’t answer; only smiled,

Poor lass! we had to lift her down.

Then in the night the husband came for me

All sweating-pale < the way they always are the first time;

After that -well, you know how it is. >

A rough time too, being her first, and her so small.

But eventually it was over, as these things are.

A boy she had, she was so sure it would be.

Seemed to know somehow. They had visitors too,

Oh! very grand. But - how did they know they would be there?

They slipped away a few days after that,

Quietly in the night. They paid their dues of course,

But it was mysterious, don’t you agree?

Considering what happened later on.

You sometimes wonder, looking back on it.

A lovely child he was, but - I don’t know -

Something different about him, strange.

I couldn’t put a name to it. I told my man

He’ll never make old bones I said.