Said old Sir Jason, the red-gold fox: "The gardeners asleep, I will pick the locks: His smooth leaves murmur like dark green seas,— I will run beneath his nectarine trees. But when it is dawn and the reynard-hued Sun Will run through the tall empty town of the corn And on my Gold Fleece gold spangles are born Of the jangling dew, Where the old cock crew, Like that long-fleeced fox the Sun I will run And my jangling gown Will leave that tall town With a rank and dank ragged-robin smell. There is none to listen and none to tell, As I tumble the old King toppling down. For only my vixen wife will hark Where the leaves of the wood are glittering dark As the armoured men the King saw grow From the earth ten thousand years ago. When the kingly cock In his feathered smock With that five-hinged sword of wood, his crow, Through the forest thrusts, I'll overthrow This ancient King in his red-gold crown; For now he is only a country clown And his smock is a rustic long night-gown, And a five-hinged sword of wood will not Awaken a world that has fallen to rot A world that's afraid And pretends to be dead— 'Neath the wall of the tall nodding town of the shade. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...VERSES FROM THE GRANDE CHARTREUSE by MATTHEW ARNOLD MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS by HENRY GLASSFORD BELL HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD by ROBERT BROWNING COMMON DUST by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON THE LABORS OF HERCULES by MARIANNE MOORE WAR AND WASHINGTON by JONATHAN MITCHELL SEWALL |