Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, BURROS, by WALT MASON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

BURROS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The burros lazily infest the mountain
Last Line: With tears. No beast can be a standing jest, and find in life much joy or zest,
Subject(s): Animals; Donkeys; Horses; Burros


THE burros lazily infest the mountain regions of the West. You see them on the
dizzy trails, with drooping ears and switching tails; and as they climb the
rocky steep, they all seem walking in their sleep. The world has many mournful
things, that walk on legs or fly on wings; the moping owl seems so depressed it

gives you fantods in your breast; the cross-eyed jackal sits and howls more
dismally than all the owls. The circus clown has won renown as being utterly
cast down. But if you'd see the soul of woe, pack up your thermos flasks and go,

out to some rugged western place, and look a burro in the face. There you will
find, beneath those ears, the sorrow of a million years. I wondered why he
looked so sad, when, in a Colorado grad, I first beheld him packing round a dame

who weighed two hundred pound. But soon I knew; where'er he wends, a gale of
merriment ascends, and dreary jokes assail his ears and fill his patient eyes
with tears. No beast can be a standing jest, and find in life much joy or zest,





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