Mouldiwarp

 A Dead Mole - Andrew Young

Strong - shouldered mole,

That so much lived below the ground,

Dug, fought and loved, hunted and fed,

For you to raise a mound

Was as for us to make a hole;

What wonder now that being dead

Your body lies here stout and square

Buried within the blue vault of the air?

On a happier and more topical note for August, 

Mole's thoughts on returning home after travelling Abroad:

He saw clearly how plain and simple - how narrow, even - it all was;

but clearly, too, how much it all meant to him,

and the special value of some such anchorage in one's existence.

He did not at all want to abandon the new life

and its splendid spaces,

to turn his back on the sun and air

and all they offered him and creep home and stay there;

the upper world was all too strong, it called to him still,

even down there, and he knew he must return to the larger stage.

But it was good to think he had this to come back to,

this place which was all his own,

these things which were so glad to see him again

and could always be counted upon for the same simple welcome.

From the chapter Dulce Domum - Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame