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Bread and Circuses

Chapter 79: THE BABY GOAT
By Helen Parry Eden
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Poetry

About This Book

A lyrical collection of short poems ranges from quiet country scenes and childhood memories to urban sketches and religious reflections. The poet renders streams, gardens, market sellers, and domestic interiors in close sensory detail while pairing everyday observation with moral and spiritual meditation. Animal vignettes and playful pieces for children sit alongside elegies, prayers, and ironic portraits of modern life, producing tones of humour, tenderness, and solemnity. Varied forms and concise portraits move between pastoral lanes, London streets, and intimate household moments while attending to time, sorrow, and faith.

THE BABY GOAT

Four alders guard a bridge of planks And waveless waters filmed with brown, A rugged lawn’s uneven banks Slope gently down, And there, still chafing at the chain That girds his slim pathetic throat, They’ve picketed our friend again— The Baby Goat.
Treading alone the watered vale, Betsey and I, beside the marsh Often we linger to bewail His durance harsh; What plaints allure my baby’s feet, What tethered struggles claim her sighs, What shrill protestant whinnies greet Her long good-byes.
Once we repassed the lonely ground Below the alders where he feeds And spied his stunted horns girt round With flow’ring weeds, Two merry wenches and a child Caressed his grey ill-fitting coat And, lolling in the sedge, beguiled The Baby Goat.
Now, for long days companionless, His soft blunt nose, his agate eyes, His raised remonstrant brows express The sad surprise Wherewith the desolate green waste O’erloads his heart who at the edge Of stagnant waters kneels to taste The thankless sedge.
His Mother is his chiefest lack Who in some heathy upland place Tidied his sturdy socks of black And licked his face; He turns to see us saunter by The level highway hand-in-hand— I think the Baby Goat knows why We understand.