One of those old men fearing no man,
Two hundred broods his eaves have known
Since they cut on a Sapperton churchyard stone —
“Thomas Yarnton of Tarlton, Yeoman.”
At dusk you can hear the yeomen calling
The cattle still to Sapperton stalls,
And still the stroke of the woodman falls
As Thomas of Tarlton heard it falling.
I walked these meadows in seventeen-hundred,
Seed of his loins, a dream that stirred
Beyond the shape of a yeoman’ s word,
So faint that but unawares he wondered.
And now, from the weeds of his tomb uncomely,
I travel again the tracks he made,
And walks at my side the yeoman shade
Of Thomas Yarnton of Tarlton dumbly.