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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TRAY, by ROBERT BROWNING Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Sing me a hero! Quench my thirst Last Line: "how brain secretes dog's soul, we'll see!'" Subject(s): Animal Rights; Animal Abuse; Vivisection | |||
SING me a hero! Quench my thirst Of soul, ye bards! Quoth Bard the first: "Sir Olaf, the good knight, did don His helm and eke his habergeon" ... Sir Olaf and his bard --! "That sin-scathed brow" (quoth Bard the second), "That eye wide ope as though Fate beckoned My hero to some steep, beneath Which precipice smiled tempting death" ... You too without your host have reckoned! "A beggar-child" (let's hear this third!) "Sat on a quay's edge: like a bird Sang to herself at careless play, And fell into the stream. 'Dismay! Help, you the standers-by!' None stirred. 'Bystanders reason, think of wives And children ere they risk their lives. Over the balustrade has bounced A mere instinctive dog, and pounced Plumb on the prize. 'How well he dives! "'Up he comes with the child, see, tight In mouth, alive too, clutched from quite A depth of ten feet -- twelve, I bet! Good dog! What, off again? There's yet Another child to save? All right! "How strange we saw no other fall! It's instinct in the animal. Good dog! But he's a long while under: If he got drowned I should not wonder -- Strong current, that against the wall! "'Here he comes, holds in mouth this time -- What may the thing be? Well, that's prime! Now, did you ever? Reason reigns In man alone, since all Tray's pains Have fished -- the child's doll from the slime!' "And so, amid the laughter gay, Trotted my hero off, -- old Tray, -- Till somebody, prerogatived With reason, reasoned: 'Why he dived, His brain would show us, I should say. "'John, go and catch -- or, if needs be, Purchase -- that animal for me! By vivisection, at expense Of half-an-hour and eighteenpence, How brain secretes dog's soul, we'll see!'" | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ENTERING THE SOUTH by LUCILLE CLIFTON THE ARTIC OX by MARIANNE MOORE MARY'S LAMB by SARAH JOSEPHA BUELL HALE PLEA FOR A CAPTIVE by WILLIAM STANLEY MERWIN SING-SONG; A NURSERY RHYME BOOK: 97 by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI KINDNESS TO ANIMALS by JOSEPH ASHBY-STERRY PET'S PUNISHMENT by JOSEPH ASHBY-STERRY THE WILD HORSE by MARY ANN BROWNE CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME' by ROBERT BROWNING |
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