Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE DEAD OX, by PUBLIUS VERGILIUS MARO


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE DEAD OX, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Lo! Smoking in the stubborn plough, the ox
Last Line: Their cup: nor one care mars their honest sleep.
Alternate Author Name(s): Virgil; Vergil
Subject(s): Animals; Oxen; Plowing & Plowmen


Lo! smoking in the stubborn plough, the ox
Falls, from his lip foam gushing crimson-stained,
And sobs his life out. Sad of face the swain
Moves, disentangling from his comrade's corpse
The lone survivor: and its work half-done,
Abandoned in the furrow stands the plough.
Not shadiest forest-depths, not softest lawns,
May move him now: not river amber-pure,
That rolls from crag to crag unto the plain.
Powerless the broad sides, glazed the rayless eye,
And low and lower sinks in the ponderous neck.
What thank hath he for all the toil he toiled,
The heavy-clodded land in man's behoof
Upturning? Yet the grape of Italy,
The stored-up feast hath wrought no harm to him:
Green leaf and taintless grass are all their fare;
The clear rill or the travel-freshen'd stream
Their cup: nor one care mars their honest sleep.




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