The New Year

He was the one man I met up in the woods

That stormy New Year’s morning; and at first sight, 

Fifty yards off, I could not tell how much

Of the strange tripod was a man. His body,

Bowed horizontal, was supported equally 

By legs at one end, by a rake at the other:

Thus he rested, far less like a man than

His wheel-barrow in profile was like a pig.

But when I saw it was an old man bent, 

At the same moment came into my mind

The games at which boys bend thus, High-cockolorum 

Or Fly-the-garter, and Leap-frog. At the sound 

Of footsteps he began to straighten himself;

His head rolled under his cape like a tortoise’s; 

He took an unlit pipe out of his mouth 

Politely ere I wished him ‘A Happy New Year’, 

And with his head cast upward sideways muttered ‒

So far as I could hear through the trees’ roar ‒

‘Happy New Year, and may it come fastish, too,’

While I strode by and he turned to raking leaves.