Bellow, bull, bellow!
Low thy dark sound
Like a moan,
Call to thine own!
Stand with thy head on the fence,
And bellow, bull, bellow!
What if thy girth be immense,
O thou, the begetter of flesh for the block,
That, sleek as a cat, in thy fat
Must lie on a sheltering mat,
Lest thy sensitive skin suffer shock
From the touch of the unstrawed earth—
Thy satin-smooth skin, that shrinks in the bleak
Of the wind like an unfledged bird, or the weak
Small thing of the flock that shudders at birth!
Thou wast not bred for thy strength,
But for depth of the flank,
And for thickness of shoulder;
Not for the charge of a heart grown prouder and bolder,
Not for the hoof that scattered the dust,
Not for the wrath that, swift to the thrust,
Came down to thy sire
And rose in his blood like fire!
But thou art the thrall
Of a fence, and a stall!
Bellow, bull, bellow!
Speed once lay in thy feet,
That still have the grace of the fleet
Small feet of thy sister the deer:
She who would leap from the smutch
Of a hand, that, venturing near,
Asked but to fondle and touch!
But thou, thou art a craver of hands;
Of comfort and ease; of the things that enmesh,
And are soothing and soft to the flesh.
Yet, bellow, bull, bellow;
Might still in thy frame lies hid.
If thou would’st only in fullness of wrath
Trample thyself from thy bonds, and, rid
Of the softness and sloth,
Forth as a leader in pride,
Then who had denied thee? Who had defied?
Thou hadst then fed with the herd,
Thou hadst then ruled undeterred,
Who now art the slave of a fence,
The led of a ring in the nose,
And no man taketh thee hence,
Save as his will and his own wish goes.
Bellow, bull, bellow!
Esau of beasts! Might that, once bold,
All for a measure of stover basks and is sold!
What to thee if the mountain should call,
What to thee if the valley resound
To the multiple rush, the rout, and the fall
And the click of the hoofs as onward they bound,
Till, afar in the distance, they sound
Like a tide on the run?
What to thee of the pattering, one after one,
Of the hooves of the calves, that tap like the falling of leaves,
And trip like a trickle of water at eaves,
While still thou dost stand
Like a wave that rose on the land—
That rose and is done?
Now, when the moon shines out in the sky,
Riding up like a hunter over the hills,
When the moon-glades sway to her whitening beam,
And the swirling core of the river spills
Where the break of the current is turned at the sedge,
With a ripple like jewels of light at the edge,
Do there never awaken within
Thy luxurious flesh, and thy too soft skin,
Longings that breed (as of some great dream,
Mighty in sleep, held when awake)
For the mountain height, and the sunlit lake,
For the cool green turf, and the mottle of rills,
Till thy shortened breath and thy sleek sides ache,
There to plunge forth and be free,
As a swimmer aches for the sea?
Is there never a craving of feet
To climb to some far retreat,
High and yet higher, and conquer and keep?
Nay! thou art only the skin of a seed,
Ease-loving, and asking no more than to sleep
And to breed; to wake and to feed. . . .
(Dame Mary Gilmore DBE)
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Based on Topics: Light Poems, Dreams Poems, Fire Poems, Sleep Poems, Birds Poems, Water Poems, Anger Poems, Pride Poems, Running Poems, Birth Poems, Slavery PoemsBased on Keywords: basks, venturing, shortened, esau, multiple, earth-, thickness, unfledged, undeterred, land-, smutch