Friend Hedylus' cloak is a sight to behold, It's ragged, it's tattered, it's battered, it's old, Not the handles of flaggons grown smoother from wear, Not the legs of chained asses more mangy and bare, Not the ruts of a highway where market carts meet, Not the round shining pebbles on which the waves beat, The rags of dead paupers, spades ground by the soil, Nor the cart wheel made bright in its circular toil, Not the flank of the bison, rubbed raw in his lair, Not an old boar's white tusk ground down to a stump, Are so worn as old Hedylus' cloak, yet I'd swear That his cloak's much less worn than the hole in his rump. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...NEW NEIGHBORHOOD by KAREN SWENSON DARK ROSALEEN by TOMAS COSTELLO TO A LILY by JAMES MATHEWES LEGARE LACHRYMAE MUSARUM (THE DEATH OF TENNYSON) by WILLIAM WATSON THE LAST MAN: RECEPTION OF EVIL TIDINGS by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES SECTION GANG: AFTERNOON by NORMAN BOLKER MOUNT SINAI by HORATIO (HORATIUS) BONAR |