Classic and Contemporary Poetry
COLD-BLOODED CREATURES, by ELINOR WYLIE Poem Explanation Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Man, the egregious egoist Alternate Author Name(s): Benet, William Rose, Mrs. Subject(s): Animals; Mankind; Snakes; Human Race; Serpents; Vipers | ||||||||
Man, the egregious egoist, (In mystery the twig is bent,) Imagines, by some mental twist, That he alone is sentient Of the intolerable load Which on all living creatures lies, Nor stoops to pity in the toad The speechless sorrow of its eyes. He asks no questions of the snake, Nor plumbs the phosphorescent gloom Where lidless fishes, broad awake, Swim staring at a night-mare doom. {10103047} When against earth a wooden heel Clicks as loud as stone on steel, When stone turns flour instead of flakes, And frost bakes clay as fire bakes, When the hard-bitten fields at last Crack like iron flawed in the cast, When the world is wicked and cross and old, I long to be quit of the cruel cold. Little birds like bubbles of glass Fly to other Americas, Birds as bright as sparkles of wine Fly in the nite to the Argentine, Birds of azure and flame-birds go To the tropical Gulf of Mexico: They chase the sun, they follow the heat, It is sweet in their bones, O sweet, sweet, sweet! It's not with them that I'd love to be, But under the roots of the balsam tree. Just as the spiniest chestnut-burr Is lined within with the finest fur, So the stoney-walled, snow-roofed house Of every squirrel and mole and mouse Is lined with thistledown, sea-gull's feather, Velvet mullein-leaf, heaped together With balsam and juniper, dry and curled, Sweeter than anything else in the world. O what a warm and darksome nest Where the wildest things are hidden to rest! It's there that I'd love to lie and sleep, Soft, soft, soft, and deep, deep, deep! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE IMAGINED COPPERHEAD by ANDREW HUDGINS TO THE SNAKE by DENISE LEVERTOV FIVE ACCOUNTS OF A MONOGAMOUS MAN by WILLIAM MEREDITH TANKA DIARY (8) by HARRYETTE MULLEN SNAKE WOMAN by MARGARET ATWOOD A PORTRAIT OF MY ROOF by JAMES GALVIN BRONZE TRUMPETS AND SEA WATER; ON TURNING LATIN VERSE INTO ENGLISH by ELINOR WYLIE |
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