| Robert Graves (1895–1985). Fairies and Fusiliers. 1918. |
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| 14. Sorley’s Weather |
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| WHEN outside the icy rain | |
| Comes leaping helter-skelter, | |
| Shall I tie my restive brain | |
| Snugly under shelter? | |
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| Shall I make a gentle song | 5 |
| Here in my firelit study, | |
| When outside the winds blow strong | |
| And the lanes are muddy? | |
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| With old wine and drowsy meats | |
| Am I to fill my belly? | 10 |
| Shall I glutton here with Keats? | |
| Shall I drink with Shelley? | |
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| Tobacco’s pleasant, firelight’s good: | |
| Poetry makes both better. | |
| Clay is wet and so is mud, | 15 |
| Winter rains are wetter. | |
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| Yet rest there, Shelley, on the sill, | |
| For though the winds come frorely, | |
| I’m away to the rain-blown hill | |
| And the ghost of Sorley. | 20 |
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