A Strange Meeting

A Strange Meeting written by William Henry Davies

From "Forty New Poems", (1918)

Link to further information

The moon is full, and so am I;
  The night is late, the ale was good;
And I must go two miles and more
  Along a country road.

Now what is this that's drawing near?
  It seems a man, and tall;
But where the face should show its white
  I see no white at all.

Where is his face: or do I see
  The back part of his head,
And, with his face turned round about,
  He walks this way? I said.

He's close at hand, but where's the face?
  What devil is this I see?
I'm glad my body's warm with ale,
  There's trouble here for me.

I clutch my staff, I make a halt,
  'His blood or mine,' said I.
'Good-night,' the black man said to me,
  As he went passing by.

This work is in the public domain in countries where the copyright term is the author's life plus 70 years or less.