DEAD IN A DITCH by Patrick Kavanagh

Dead In a Ditch

(To Hilda)

Unless you come
I shall die in a ditch,
Poet dead in a ditch.
There will be no bluebells there,
Only the vetch
Smelling of death
Weeds around me,
The mud of hooves
That prance there
Falling over my eyes.

Rags of beggars that passed
Will clothe my soul.
The winter will come through the bushes,
Rain will fall
Making puddles in my face,
The snow will come
And cover me up
Like the Babes in the Wood.
Then no one will stop
To examine the heap,
No one will know where a poet’s asleep.

I shall die in a ditch
Like a dog or bum,
Poet dead in a ditch
Unless you come.

(July 1945)
-Patrick Kavanagh
Copyright © Estate of Katherine Kavanagh