English herons brought for sport to a new land Have bred here in pine-nests of the sea-marshes yearly For more seasons than any man lives. In the hot light of the June sun they flounce up squawking, Then settle back on forks of the dead-tree branches -- While the tide beneath them ebbs and flows and sighs Through channels of ooze hid in the dank silt-grasses. Yet now no hoodless hawks hover to strike them: @3That@1 game is gone and the players of it forgotten In sportless churchyards cresting the sea-granite. But the greater game of a younger land usurps it: @3Men@1 wing in and out among the sunsets, Or take off boldly at dawn like hovering herons To span the Atlantic to hereditary shores. Where is Leif Ericson? . . . Where is Columbus? . . . In a few centuries more will the moon be a port of call For worlds of outer space? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AFTER THE PAPAGO by JAMES GALVIN YOU KNOW WHAT PEOPLE SAY by JAMES GALVIN LETHE by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: COLUMBUS CHENEY by EDGAR LEE MASTERS IN THE UNDERWORLD by ISAAC ROSENBERG |