"A Bright Day," by W.H. Davies

My windows now are giant drops of dew

The common stones are dancing in my eyes;

The light is winged, and panting, and the world

Is fluttering with a little fall or rise.

See, while they shoot the sun with singing Larks,

How those broad meadows sparkle and rejoice!

Where can the Cuckoo hide in all this light,

And still remain unseen, and but a voice?

Shall I be mean, when all this light is mine?

Is anything unworthy of its place?

Call for the rat, and let him share my joy,

And sit beside me here, to wash his face.

William Henry Davies (1871–1940) was a Welsh poet and writer who spent much of his early life as a vagabond in the U.S. and England, riding the rails, doing seasonal work, begging when necessary, and finding shelter where he could. Attempting to jump a freight train on his way to the Klondike, his right foot was crushed under the train’s wheels and the leg had to be amputated below the knee. He wore a wooden leg thereafter. Still desperately poor, Davies self-published a small collection of poems and was later assisted by the brilliant young British poet Edward Thomas, who rented a cottage for him to live in. Eventually, after the publication of a memoir of his life as a vagabond, The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp, and after he began giving public readings of his poetry, Davies became a well known and popular writer and poet. He married in 1923 and settled down to a productive life of writing and publishing.