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Home  »  Poetry: A Magazine of Verse  »  Willard Wattles

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

Hrolf’s Thrall—His Song

Willard Wattles

From “On the Road”

THERE be five things to a man’s desire:

Kine flesh, roof-tree, his own fire,

Clean cup of sweet wine from goat’s hide,

And through dark night one to lie beside.

Four things poor and homely be:

Hearth-fire, white cheese, own roof-tree,

True mead slow brewed with brown malt;

But a good woman is savor and salt.

Plow, shove deep through gray loam;

Hack, sword, hack for straw-thatch home;

Guard, buckler, guard both beast and human;

God, send true man his true woman!