A Child's Pet

William Henry Davies 1871 – 1940



When I sailed out of Baltimore
With twice a thousand head of sheep,
They would not eat, they would not drink,
But bleated o'er the deep.
  
Inside the pens we crawled each day,
To sort the living from the dead;
And when we reached the Mersey's mouth
Had lost five hundred head.
  
Yet every night and day one sheep,
That had no fear of man or sea,
Stuck through the bars its pleading face,
And it was stroked by me.
  
And to the sheep-men standing near,
'You see,' I said, 'this one tame sheep:
It seems a child has lost her pet,
And cried herself to sleep.'
  
So every time we passed it by,
Sailing to England's slaughter-house,
Eight ragged sheep-men - tramps and thieves -
Would stroke that sheep's black nose.
  
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Submitted on August 03, 2020

Modified on April 11, 2023

42 sec read
29

Quick analysis:

Scheme XAXA XBXB ACXC XAXA XXXX
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 698
Words 138
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4

William Henry Davies

William Henry Davies or W H Davies was a Welsh poet and writer Davies spent a significant part of his life as a tramp or vagabond in the United States and United Kingdom but became known as one of the most popular poets of his time The principal themes in his work are the marvels of nature observations about lifes hardships his own tramping adventures and the various characters he met Davies is usually considered as one of the Georgian poets although much of his work is atypical of the style and themes adopted by others of the genre more…

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