Two and thirty is the ploughman. <br />He's a man of gallant inches, <br />And his hair is close and curly, <br />And his beard; <br />But his face is wan and sunken, <br />And his eyes are large and brilliant, <br />And his shoulder-blades are sharp, <br />And his knees. <br /> <br />He is weak of wits, religious, <br />Full of sentiment and yearning, <br />Gentle, faded-with a cough <br />And a snore. <br />When his wife (who was a widow, <br />And is many years his elder) <br />Fails to write, and that is always, <br />He desponds. <br /> <br />Let his melancholy wander, <br />And he'll tell you pretty stories <br />Of the women that have wooed him <br />Long ago; <br />Or he'll sing of bonnie lasses <br />Keeping sheep among the heather, <br />With a crackling, hackling click <br />In his voice.<br /><br />William Ernest Henley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/etching-2/
