A winter sky is overcast and gray ... The shocks of corn like buckskin tepees rise Beyond the dreary pasture's eastern side ... The verdured slopes have turned to darkest tan, And through the chilly day a flock of sheep Is nibbling at the scanty forage found ... The silly geese outspread their gleaming wings, And screaming, run as though by demons chased -- Fat colts prance round and round to race their blood; The stolid cattle crop the withered grass Where linger traces of a fall of snow ... The sheep and colts and cattle graze and graze -- The awkward geese are ever on a quest ... These happy creatures do not, cannot know That in a chamber in the slate-hued house The hands that toiled to feed them carefully At morn and eve in winter's bitterness, Are lying folded, calm and pulseless now, And free eternally from toil and care. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BUCOLIC COMEDY: THE DOLL by EDITH SITWELL THE BALLAD WHICH ANNE ASKEW MADE AND SANG WHEN SHE WAS IN NEWGATE by ANNE ASKEWE TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED MASTER WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE by BEN JONSON PHILOMELA by JOHN CROWE RANSOM A BEAUTIFUL YOUNG NYMPH GOING TO BED by JONATHAN SWIFT AT LORD'S [CRICKET GROUND] by FRANCIS THOMPSON |