Shovel-bearded Bob Hayward, a leather-coloured old farmer built like a cob, liked women but loved horses and trees — he loved the life in living things, but trees above all. He planted elms along a narrow track that, for all its nightingales and thicket, had never been given a name. The speaker gently notes that we sometimes fail to name what we cherish, so no one was to blame. Now a stormcock sings in those elms, heard by travellers on a slow-climbing train. Bob died years ago, and mist and rain from the trees have slowly turned the lane into a gloomy, impassable slough where no one ventures. Only the name “Bob’s Lane” endures. The tone is warm, rueful, and wholly unpretentious — a recognition that a man’s affection can dwindle into just a name, yet even that name holds a stubborn tenderness, like the man himself.
Women He Liked — Summary
WOMEN he liked, did shovel-bearded Bob, Old Farmer Hayward of the Heath, but he Loved horses. He himself was like a cob, And leather-coloured. Also he loved a tree.
For the life in them he loved most living things, But a tree chiefly. All along the lane He planted elms where now the stormcock sings That travellers hear from the slow-climbing train.
Till then the track had never had a name For all its thicket and the nightingales That should have earned it. No one was to blame. To name a thing beloved man sometimes fails.
Many years since, Bob Hayward died, and now None passes there because the mist and the rain Out of the elms have turned the lane to slough And gloom, the name alone survives, Bob's Lane.