Then: "I think I could help,
if
I might try,"
fox offers in a friendly way, intent
for signs of weakness in craw's button eye.
"How still ,and wide now is the whole extent
of woods and sky! Why, in this tiny copse,
must our wills lock in grinding punishment?"
Thinks crow, beak locked on cheese; speechlessly mopes.
But to relentless fox his thoughts are clear,
inspiring more imaginative hopes
Of victory more bitter and more drear
than scrawny body clamped in
his
strong teeth:
the craw's fond spirit downed and clamped in fear.
"How beautiful is flight above the heath
where I must creep, admiring from afar
your gleaming wings," says fox. His face, beneath
Craw's teetering perch, reveals no slightest bar
to candor or to perfect understanding;
and now a tell-tale moisture starts to mar
Black craw's bright eye. It is his soul demanding
the sweets of song, or philosophic solace;
he
is
a bird who dreams of human standing.
"How must it feel to leave behind the onus
of earth-bound creatures, high in air, alone
with the Alone, in all wide heaven solus?
"I long," fox presses on, "in your own tone
to hear truth's music- pardon my insistence–
give me truth's very tune!" That snaps the bone
Of the sad crow's last, desperate resistance,
unclenches claws and beak, melts him with pity
for mortal fate, especially in this instance.
Let us not dwell on this absurdity.
I do not want to hear crow's raucous bawling
in agony of twisted vanity,
Which, in his disarray, is more appalling
than living gone. The copse returns to peace,
in the hushed air one ragged feather falling,
as though to say that there that scene might cease.
