Genus Corvus


There my silence came,
Soft, she clomb the knoll.
There my silence came
To glaze longly intil a well of coal.

Thither she sate, and her
Smilet he kindly rewords,
Silverly, a glimpse to a
Sistering cote of variable birds:

This old beech, martyr'd
Of a mouthŠd bole.
His longing courb
To bathe a knott'd spur,

Wherein the vaulty root,
A russet-pated fox featly mends his fur.

And as the racking cloud
Bend a pencill'd, metaphysical,bow
There souses, from this nonpareil cope
A fulsome and gorbelli'd crow.

My silence he o'erlooks, his eye of pumpion pale.
FeazŠd feathers furled,
This misproud sail.

My silence, discoloured, her cheek-roses whither.
Fox flees, birds quiver.
And her hand, to a distempering tremble
Grows lither.

Still, goodman crow, enrapt
Jets too and fro
Straight-pight upon talent and night'd toe.

And lo! Look to the gloaming flow.
Long, purpled curtain that rolls
Low, to the steepy highland scaffold.

Breathes crow:

"Art cold? Come, in pinion
Will I thee enfold.
And upon perfumŠd night's airy roads,
Shall we otherwhere go?"


Dedicated to Poe.

Crowkeeper (Cornelius Scarecrow esquire)