The Gypsies lit their fires by the chalk-pit gate anew,
And the hobbled horses supped in the further dusk and dew;
The gnats flocked round the smoke like idlers as they were
And through the goss and bushes the owls began to churr.
An ell above the woods the last of sunset glowed
With a dusky gold that filled the pond beside the road;
The cricketers had done, the leas all silent lay
And the carrier’s clattering wheels went past and died away.
The gypsies lolled and gossiped, and ate their stolen swedes,
Made merry with mouth organs,worked toys with piths of reeds;
The old wives puffed their pipes, nigh as black as their hair,
And not one of them all seemed to know the name of care.
Edmund Blunden , Poems 1914 – 1930
