Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE POACHER'S TIME-PIECE, by PAUL FORT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE POACHER'S TIME-PIECE, by                    
First Line: In the viewless belfry-top reared by the shades of night the round
Last Line: In the birds he finds the hour.
Subject(s): Poaching; Time; Watches


In the viewless belfry-top reared by the shades of night the round moon is a
clock that marks the hours in flight. -- No circling hands are set on the moon's
face, you find? Nor any beadle yet its coiling spring doth wind? Yet it chimeth
none the less. When midnight once is passed, hark, 'neath the forest vast, to
the sounds and silences. One! the finch proclaims it. Two! The warbler sable-
crested, and half-past two the quail and the warbler crimson-breasted. Three!
The owlet's whit-tu-whoo, and the blackbird's whistle gay. Four! The brown-
headed tit trills, and with throat of grey the field-lark answers it. Five, 'tis
the sparrows all! (Crazed is the nightingale who, with her dolorous tune, floods
the still, moonlit glades from midnight black till day. O'er her wrong, no god
hath power.) -- What if tonight we lack -- like snipping scissor-blades that,
small and small, divide Time into tiny shreds -- two hands to grace the moon!
Did the Great Beadle fail to wind the spring aright? What does the poacher care?
In the birds he finds the hour.





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