July 3rd, Wednesday | W.H. Davies & Québec City

The date is July 3rd, Wednesday, and today I’m coming to you from La Serena, Chile.

On this day in 1608, Québec City was founded by Samuel de Champlain. Champlain landed with three ships at the shore of the city on the bank of the St. Lawrence River. He and his crew set about fortifying the city with walls and a moat. 

Québec City is one of the oldest European settlements in North America and the only city north of Mexico City to still have parts of its original fortifying walls. 

Today is the birthday of poet and writer W. H. Davies.  He was born in 1871 in Newport, Wales, a part of the United Kingdom. Davies was always getting into trouble in his youth. As a teen he was arrested with a gaggle of friends for stealing handbags and continued on in vagrant ways into his 20s. 

He lived as a tramp, but not to gather material for writing, as George Orwell did. Rather, a young Davies simply preferred to romp about. And he was young enough not to care for the comforts of a clean or comfortable place to sleep. 

When he did work it, the jobs were menial or off-beat. Davies worked just enough to make what he needed for his next move. One of his more odd jobs included working on a cattle ship, a vessel that transported cows and bulls from Europe to America. 

One winter he spent in Michigan in a “boodle jail.” It’s a bit unclear how boodle jails worked exactly, but basically, a hobo, or tramp, would make an illegal arrangement with the jailer to be “imprisoned” for a time, usually during cold-weather months. Boodle jail ‘prisoners’ would laze about, playing cards, singing with each other, reading books, and sometimes going for walks. Again, for a young Davies without much care for worldly comforts, the boodle jail was a perfectly fine place to spend a winter. 

But Davies’s wild days would come to a crackling halt in 1899.  While jumping onto a train headed for Klondike Canada (chasing the Gold Rush) Davies lost his footing and his right leg got caught up in the wheels of the train. His right foot was shattered, and he’d have to get it amputated later as infection set in. Davies wore a wooden leg from his right-knee down for the rest of his life. 

Although Davies brushed off the injury decades later, but he immediately headed back to England after the injury and settled into a less nomadic life. He roomed at a shelter while he began to compose poetry. He self-published a collection in 1905 titled in The Soul's Destroyer slowly selling copies to elite society. Davies’s poems caught the eye of a journalist who, upon finding the sorry state Davies lived in, offered up a simple cottage. Davies continued to write poems and also wrote a memoir of his time as a tramp while living at the cottage. 

Davies would return to London in 1914, continuing his writing from a humble apartment. He found the literary and artistic community in London quite friendly and was welcomed into their ranks, enjoying conversations at cafes. 

Davies married only once and later in life. Helen Payne was 29 years his junior and pregnant, but after watching her get off of a bus, Davies was head over heels. The couple remained married until Davies’s death in 1940. 

Today’s poem is by our birthday poet, titled “Leisure”

Leisure

W.H. Davies

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare?—

No time to stand beneath the boughs,

And stare as long as sheep and cows:

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night:

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance:

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began?

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

Thank you for listening. I’m your host, Virginia Combs, wishing you a good morning, a better day, and a lovely evening.