The ploughman’s gone

The ploughman’s gone, the hansom driver,
Left in the records of living a not-to-be-broken picture,
In sun and rain working for good and gain,
Left only the voice in the old village choir
To remember, cast stricture on mechanics and man.
The windmills of the world still stand
With wooden arms revolving in the wind
Against the rusty sword and the old horse
Bony and spavined, rich with fleas.
But the horses are gone and the reins are green
As the hands that held them in my father’s time.
The wireless snarls on the hearth.
No more toils over the fields
The rawboned horse to a man’s voice
Telling it this, patting its black nose:
You shall go as the others have gone,
Lay your head on a hard bed of stone,
And have the raven for companion.
The ploughman’s gone, the hansom driver,
With rain-beaten hands holding the whip,
Masters over unmastered nature,
Streets’ stock, of the moon lit, ill lit, field and town,
Lie cold, with their horses, for raven and kite.

Man toils now on an iron saddle, riding
In sun and rain over the dry shires,
Hearing the engines, and the wheat dying.
Sometimes at his ear the engine’s voice
Revolves over and over again
The same tune as in my father’s time:
You shall go as the others have gone,
Lay your head on a hard bed of stone,
And have the raven for companion.
It is the engine and not the raven.
Man who once drove is driven in sun and rain.
It is the engine for companion.
It is the engine under the unaltered sun.