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Alfred Noyes - The Escape of the Old Grey Squirrel
Work rating: Medium

Old Grey Squirrel might have been 
   Almost anything —
Might have been a soldier, sailor, 
   Tinker, tailor
(Never a beggar-man, though, nor thief). 
   Might have been, perhaps, a king, 
Or an Indian chief.

He remained a City clerk 
   Doubled on a great high stool,
Totting up, from dawn to dark, 
   Figures, figures, figures, figures,
Red ink, black ink, double rule, 
  Tot-tot-totting with his pen, 
Up and down and round again —
   Curious Old Grey Squirrel.

No one ever really knew 
   What he did at night,
In his room so near the roof, 
   Up those steep and narrow stairs.
Old Grey Squirrel wasn`t quite 
   The same as other men.
What he said was always true; 
   He was like a little child 
   In a thousand things.
Something shy and delicate, 
Cold and grave and undefiled,
   Seemed to keep him quite aloof. 
You could never call him lonely,
   Though he lived with memory there.

When he knelt beside his bed 
   He had nothing much to say
But the simplest little prayer 
   Learned in childhood, long ago,
And he didn`t know or care 
   Whether Calvinists might call it
Praying for the dead.

Father, mother, sister, brother -
   Memories clear as evening bells; 
Yes, the very sort of thing
   All your clever little scribblers 
Love to satirize and sting, 
So let`s talk of something else.
   He collected stamps, you know, 
Commonplace Old Squirrel.

Ah, but could you see him there, 
   When the day`s grey work was done,
Poring over his new stamps
   With that wise old air; 
Looking up the curious places
   In his tattered atlas, too 
Lands of jungle and of sun, 
Ivory tusks and dusky faces,
   Whence his latest treasure flew 
Like a tropic moth, he thought,
   To flutter round his dying lamp. . . .

   Visions are not bought and sold; 
But, when the foreign mail came in
   Bringing his employers news 
Of copper, sulphide, zinc and tin
   (And the red resultant gold), 
Envelopes were thrown away,
   So, of course, one clearly sees 
He could pick, and he could choose,
   Having, as he used to say, 
"Very great advantages."
   Rarities could not be bought. 
Bus fares don`t leave much for spending
   On a flight to Zipangu.

All the same, one never knew. 
   All things come to those who wait —
Isles of palm in rose and blue, 
India, China and Peru,
   And the Golden Gate.

So he`d turn his treasures over —
   Mauve and crimson, buff and cream —
Every stamp an elfin window
   Opening on a boy`s lost dream. 
"Curious, curious, that`s Jamaica,
   That`s Hong Kong (the twopenny red),
I`ve no doubt they are well worth seeing, 
   Well worth seeing," Old Squirrel said.

"Curious" — curious was his word —
   Old Grey Squirrel remembered a day
Sitting alone in a whispering fir-wood 
   (This was in boyhood before they caught him)
Writing a story of far Cathay, 
A tale that his friends would think absurd
But would make him famous when he was dead. 
"Curious" — thinking of all those years,
   All those dreams that had drifted away — 
Once, he had thought — but the years had taught him, 
Taught him better, and bowed his head.

"Curious" — memory clings and lingers — 
   Clings — the smell of the fir wood — clings . . .
Through his wrinkled ink-stained fingers, 
   "Curious, curious," trickled the tears,
Curious Old Grey Squirrel.

No, you`d hardly call it weeping. 
   Old Grey Squirrel could not weep.
Head on arm, he might have been 
   Sleeping; but he did not know.
Most of us are sound asleep; 
   And, that Christmas Eve, it seems,
He awoke, at last, from dreams.
   Gently, as a woman`s hand
Something touched him on the brow,
And he woke, in that strange land —
   Where he lives for ever now.

All things come to those who wait —
   Palms against a deeper blue,
   Far Cathay and Zipangu,
And the Golden Gate.
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