Dirge to a Dead Owl
Patrick Reginald Chalmers
1872 to 1942
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Silent, mysterious, on wings of down,
A swift, presence in the cover,
Vaguely irresolute, soft-breasted, brown.
Bird of Minerva, tawny-eyed moon-lover.
You faced the mid the fir-trees gaunt,
Roused by the beaters' sticks a-tapping.
From some sequestered, hidden, noontide haunt.
Where doubtless you'd been napping.
Now all that's of you, limp and dead.
Lies where a pale, floating plumes still fly light;
Your little ghost, I like to think, has sped
To the nether world of endless twilight,
(Fit paradise for who loved full well
The empty dark, those forlorn, abhorrent,)
To sail for ever o'er asphodel.
By Styx's gloomy torrent!
Meanwhile with hands the mould I'll heap
Over your warm, uncaring, earthly habit,
Over the pinions that no more sweep
Upon the unsophisticated rabbit;
Lost to daylight (which you couldn't brook,
You loathed that bore, the dull but good cock),
None of guns shall guess that I mistook
You for sweepstakes woodcock.