A DISTANT sheep-dog barks: beyond the bank A panting engine vomits soot and spark, Toils to the level, hears its couplings clank, And burrows, shrieking, through the tunnelled dark. A brown thing buffets on the cheating pane, Wins through the lattice, suns itself, and lies Shrivelled and singed, with throbbing wings that stain The cloth to dusty yellow ere it dies. Late doves are calling there across the lane, And woo to gladness mid the orchard trees, Where yesternight a mother, mad and fain, Flung Him, that gave and took, her blasphemies. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO AN INTRA-MURAL RAT by MARIANNE MOORE SPOKEN AT A CASTLE GATE by DONALD (GRADY) DAVIDSON IMAGINARY ANCESTORS: THE GIRAFFE WOMAN OF BURMA by MADELINE DEFREES THE SMALL SELF AND THE LIBERAL SELF by JAMES GALVIN TO A LADY WHO HAD OFFERED HIM A WREATH OF LAUREL by GEORGE SANTAYANA HYBRIDS OF WAR: A MORALITY POEM: 4. THE MORAL by KAREN SWENSON |