POETRY - .
STORM—AT THE FARM WINDOW.
THE unruly member (for relief
Of aching head) clacks without care : Pastures lie sullen : hung with grief The steading : thunder binds the air.
Gulls on the blue sea-surface rock, The cows move lowing to scant shade; Jess lays aside the half-worked smock, Daniel, in ditch, lets fall the spade. . • Now swoops the outrageous hurricane With lightning in steep pitchfork jags: The blanched bill leaps in sheeted rain, Sea masses white to assault the crags.
Such menace tottering overhead, Granny for ague scolds no more; She sees grey bobtail flung down dead, Lightning-blazed by the barn door. . . • Wonder and panic chase our grief, Purge our thick distempered blood : Ilan, cattle, harvest shock and sheaf Stagger below the sluicing flood.
ROBERT G RAVES.
Previous page
