Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HAVE YOU (ON THE ROAD TO KINLOCHEVEN), by PATRICK MACGILL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HAVE YOU (ON THE ROAD TO KINLOCHEVEN), by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Have you tramped about in winter, when your / boots were minus soles?
Last Line: You do not know the happiness that fills a navvy's life.
Subject(s): Roads; Travel; Wandering & Wanderers; Paths; Trails; Journeys; Trips


HAVE you tramped about in Winter, when your boots were minus soles?
Have you wandered sick and sorry with your pockets full of — holes?
Have you wondered which was better, when your capital was light,
A plate of fish and taters, or a hammock for the night?
Have you smelt the dainty odour of some swell refreshment shop,
When you'd give your soul in barter for a single mouldy chop?
Have you sought through half the kingdom for the job you could not get?
Have you eyed the city gutters for a stump of cigarette?
Have you dossed in drear December on a couch of virgin snow
With a quilt of frost above you and a sheet of ice below?

These are incidental worries which are wrong to fuss about;
But God! they matter greatly to the man who's down and out.

Have you sweltered through the Summer, till the salt sweat seared your eyes?
Have you dragged through plumb-dead levels in the slush that reached your
thighs?
Have you worked the weighty hammer swinging heavy from the hips,
While the ganger timed the striking with a curse upon his lips?
Have you climbed the risky gang-plank where a bird might fear to stop,
And reckoned twenty fathoms would be hellish far to drop?
Have you swept the clotted point-rods and the reddened reeking cars
That have dragged a trusty comrade through the twisted signal bars?
Have you seen the hooded signal, as it swung above you clear,
And the deadly engine rushing on the mate who didn't hear?

If you want to prove your manhood in the way the navvies do,
These are just the little trifles that are daily up to you.
And if you have n't shared the risk, the worry and the strife,
Disappointment, and the sorrow, then you know not what is life.

Have you padded through the country when the Summer land was fair,
And the white road lay before you leading on just any-where?
Have you seen the dusk grow mellow, and the breaking morn grow red,
And the little diamond dew-drops come to sentinel your bed?
Though your clothes were rather shabby, and your toes and knees were bare,
The little silly birdies sure they did n't seem to care;
But just sang to cheer your journey, as they would to cheer a prince,
For they saw old Adam naked, and they know no better since.

Have you slouched along the meadows, have you smelt the new-mown hay?
Have you smoked your pipe and loved it as you plodded on the way?
Have you bummed your bit of tucker from the matron at the door
And blessed the kindly woman who had pity on the poor?
A pipe of strong tobacco (if you get it) after meals
And there's many a scrap of comfort for the man who's down at heels.

Have you felt your blood go rushing, and your heart beat strangely high,
As the smoke of your tobacco curled upwards to the sky,
When lying 'neath a spreading tree that shaded from the sun
The happiest mortal in the land, it dared not shine upon.
If you have n't shared the pleasure, that follows after strife,
You do not know the happiness that fills a navvy's life.





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