Winter has planted the fields black with crows. In frustrate flocks they cark and scream and caw, Plucking at furrow and frozen hill breast For sustenance, without rest. They caw their hunger upon the cold wind That chaps the frosty skin of the brown earth; They scream their hatred of hardship and strife For mere food, mere life. Black and bitter serfs, bound to the soil, They hate mankind for what men take away In overlord fashion -- never knowing how little Fills many a pot or kettle. Bound to the soil, with a bleak enmity Against us, for they are reapers of reaped lands, They cry the old cry that God does less than well To make an earth that can be made a hell. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONG FOR A VIOLA D'AMORE by AMY LOWELL THE BEAST OF BURDEN by MARIANNE MOORE SLEEPY HOLLOW by WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING (1817-1901) EIGHT O'CLOCK by ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN THE OLD MAN'S WISH by WALTER POPE THE POET'S SONG FOR HIS WIFE by BRYAN WALLER PROCTER THE STEAM-ENGINE: CANTO 4: LORD STANHOPE'S STEAMER by T. BAKER |