DISTANT HILLS The distant hills call to me Their rolling waves seduce my heart Oh, how I want to graze in their lush valleys Oh, how I want to run down their green slopes Alas, I cannot, D**n the electric fence! D**n the electric fence! Thank You. By Gary Larsen, "Cow Poetry" TO BE A COW Just lumbering across the fields Or nibbling at their grassy yeilds Or standing calmly in a pasture Fearing no earthly disaster Maybe it is they who know the truth That man forgot back in his youth That time is one of man's inventions To gauge our deeds and best intentions Oh to stand beneath a tree And marvel at a bumblebee That pollinate the many flowers That turn to fruit through summer showers But unlike them I have a past And days that never seem to last And so it is I'm thinking now Of what it is to be a cow Author Unknown TTHE COW The friendly cow all red and white, I've with all my heart; She gives me cream with all her might, To eat with apple-tart, She wanders lowing here and there, And yet she cannot stray, All in the pleasant open air, The pleasant light if day, And blows by all the winds that pass And wet with all the showers, She walks among the meadow grass And eats the meadow flowers. by Robert Louis Stevenson THE COW IN APPLE TIME Something inspires the only cow of late To make no more of a wall than an open gate And think no more of wall-builders than fools Her face is flecked with pomace and she drools A cider syrup, Having tasted fruit, She scorns a pasture withering to the root She runs from tree to tree where lie and sweeten The windfalls spiked with stubble and worm-eaten She leaves them bitten when she has to fly She bellows on a knoll against the sky Her udder shrivels and the milk goes dry By Robert Frost |
In a China Shop By George Sidney Hellman A DRESDEN shepherdess was one day Milking a small Delft cow, When a Sevres Marquis came along I saw him smile and bow: "O lovely shepherdess, hear my song," 5 I think I heard him say, "For thou hast captured my porcelain heart, And by my sword I swear thou art A star in the Milky Way." |
DEAD COW FARM Robert Graves (18951985). Fairies and Fusiliers. 1918. AN ANCIENT saga tells us how In the beginning the First Cow (For nothing living yet had birth But Elemental Cow on earth) Began to lick cold stones and mud: 5 Under her warm tongue flesh and blood Blossomed, a miracle to believe: And so was Adam born, and Eve. Here now is chaos once again, Primeval mud, cold stones and rain. 10 Here flesh decays and blood drips red, And the Cow's dead, the old Cow's dead. |
The Cow By Bernard O'Dowd THIS is a rune I ravelled in the still, Arrogant stare of an Australian cow 'These prankt intruders of the hornless brow, Puffed up with strange illusions of their skill To fence, to milk, to fatten and to kill, 5 Once worshipped me with temple, rite and vow, Crowned me with stars, and bade rapt millions bow Before what abject guess they called my will! 'To-day, this flunkey of my midden, Man, Throws child-oblations in my milking byre, 10 Stifles in slums to spare me lordly fields, Flatters with spotless consorts my desire, And for a pail of cream his birth-right yields, As once in Egypt, Hellas, Ind, Iran!' |
LITTLE THINGS Orrick Johns. 1887 THERE'S nothing very beautiful and nothing very gay About the rush of faces in the town by day; But a light tan cow in a pale green mead, That is very beautiful, beautiful indeed... And the soft March wind and the low March mist 5 Are better than kisses in a dark street kissed... The fragrance of the forest when it wakes at dawn, The fragrance of a trim green village lawn, The hearing of the murmur of the rain at play These things are beautiful, beautiful as day! 10 And I shan't stand waiting for love or scorn When the feast is laid for a day new-born... Oh, better let the little things I loved when little Return when the heart finds the great things brittle; And better is a temple made of bark and thong 15 Than a tall stone temple that may stand too long. |
COUSIN NANCY T.S. Eliot (1888 -1965). Prufrock and Other Observations. 1917. MISS NANCY ELLICOTT Strode across the hills and broke them, Rode across the hills and broke them The barren New England hills Riding to hounds 5 Over the cow-pasture. Miss Nancy Ellicott smoked And danced all the modern dances; And her aunts were not quite sure how they felt about it, But they knew that it was modern. 10 Upon the glazen shelves kept watch Matthew and Waldo, guardians of the faith, The army of unalterable law. |
BABYLON Robert Graves (1895-1985). Fairies and Fusiliers. 1918. THE CHILD alone a poet is: Spring and Fairyland are his. Truth and Reason show but dim, And all's poetry with him. Rhyme and music flow in plenty 5 For the lad of one-and-twenty, But Spring for him is no more now Than daisies to a munching cow; Just a cheery pleasant season, Daisy buds to live at ease on. 10 He's forgotten how he smiled And shrieked at snowdrops when a child, Or wept one evening secretly For April's glorious misery. Wisdom made him old and wary 15 Banishing the Lords of Faery. Wisdom made a breach and battered Babylon to bits: she scattered To the hedges and ditches All our nursery gnomes and witches. 20 Lob and Puck, poor frantic elves, Drag their treasures from the shelves. Jack the Giant-killer's gone, Mother Goose and Oberon, Bluebeard and King Solomon. 25 Robin, and Red Riding Hood Take together to the wood, And Sir Galahad lies hid In a cave with Captain Kidd. None of all the magic hosts, 30 None remain but a few ghosts Of timorous heart, to linger on Weeping for lost Babylon. |
SONG THE LAD THEY CA' JUMPIN JOHN Robert Burns (17591796). Poems and Songs. The Harvard Classics. 190914. HER daddie forbad, her minnie forbad Forbidden she wadna be: She wadna trow't the browst she brew'd, Wad taste sae bitterlie. Chorus.The lang lad they ca'Jumpin John 5 Beguil'd the bonie lassie, The lang lad they ca'Jumpin John Beguil'd the bonie lassie. A cow and a cauf, a yowe and a hauf, And thretty gude shillin's and three; 10 A vera gude tocher, a cotter-man's dochter, The lass wi' the bonie black e'e. The lang lad, &c. |
