On pay-day nights, neck-full with beer, <br />Old soldiers stumbling homeward here, <br />Homeward (still dazzled by the spark <br />Love kindled in some alley dark) <br />Young soldiers mooning in slow thought, <br />Start suddenly, turn about, are caught <br />By a dancing sound, merry as a grig, <br />Tom Taylor's piccolo playing jig. <br />Never was blown from human cheeks <br />Music like this, that calls and speaks <br />Till sots and lovers from one string <br />Dangle and dance in the same ring. <br />Tom, of your piping I've heard said <br />And seen--that you can rouse the dead, <br />Dead-drunken men awash who lie <br />In stinking gutters hear your cry, <br />I've seen them twitch, draw breath, grope, sigh, <br />Heave up, sway, stand; grotesquely then <br />You set them dancing, these dead men. <br />They stamp and prance with sobbing breath, <br />Victims of wine or love or death, <br />In ragged time they jump, they shake <br />Their heads, sweating to overtake <br />The impetuous tune flying ahead. <br />They flounder after, with legs of lead. <br />Now, suddenly as it started, play <br />Stops, the short echo dies away, <br />The corpses drop, a senseless heap, <br />The drunk men gaze about like sheep. <br />Grinning, the lovers sigh and stare <br />Up at the broad moon hanging there, <br />While Tom, five fingers to his nose, <br />Skips off...And the last bugle blows.<br /><br />Robert Graves<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/tom-taylor/
