Regaby

“What can you say of Regaby?”  He smiled,

The old man who, with sickle swift and keen.

Shaved the high hedge and trimmed its mantle green

And paused to look at me with visage mild,

As if I were an inconsiderate child.

“What can I say of Regaby?  I’ve been

Cutting these hedges since I were a wean,

For left to grow they’d soon be tough and wild.”

I had my answer.  In the pruning knife,

That cuts away the hindering growth, is found

The power that makes for all successful life,

The law by which impetuous haste is bound.

So at these quiet crossroads I was taught

More of philosophy than all my thought.

 

Mona’s Herald     6.6.61