Lines
On Hearing a Cow Bawl, in a Deep Fit of Dejection, on the Evening of July 3, A. D. 18
Portentous sound! mysteriously vast
And awful in the grandeur of refrain
That lifts the listener’s hair, as it swells past,
And pours in turbid currents down the lane.
The small boy at the woodpile, in a dream
Slow trails the meat-rind o’er the listless saw;
The chickens roosting o’er him on the beam
Uplifted their drowsy heads with cootered awe.
The “Gung-oigh” of the pump is strangely stilled;
The smoke-house door bangs once emphatic’ly,
Then bangs no more, but leaves the silence filled
With one lorn plaint’s despotic minstrelsy.
Yet I would join thy sorrowing madrigal,
Most melancholy cow, and sing of thee
Full-hearted through my tears, for, after all
’Tis very kine of you to sing for me.