The Call of the Crows

A cold mist was silently falling, One morning not far from the Marne, On a field where a battered old barn Was haunted by garrulous crows— Insistent—unceasingly calling— Persistent as everyone knows;— But always more ghostly and weird The silence increased with their calling!— And ever more ghastly appeared The mist as a mystery falling, Unholy, unearthly, appalling.

A heavy white fog—from the clouds— Was held in that mist—God wist!— Or was it the ravelling shrouds Of spirits like shadows uprist? Of shadowy phantoms around Sad bodies on meadow and mound, All sodden and rotten, forgotten, Where glory swept over the ground?

So many they were that not any Could rise through the mist o’er the plain, But gathered as fog where the fenny Reeds wept in the reek and the rain.— So many the multitudes slain, The bravest endeavour might never A single soul liberty gain.— Alas, to be reeking forever; In misty confusion to lie on Each other, forgotten, forlorn; Sad spirits, unbodied, to sigh on That heavy-held fog of the morn.

And so the black crow, the foul vulture, That hovers or covers that field— Ah pity the peasant shall culture That field for a bountiful yield!— The crow and the vulture sepulture Not only the flesh that is rent, But even the air they are breathing, The misty air winnowed with wings,— All seething with spirit-forms pent!—

The air they are breathing is seething With many a phantom that clings To the carrion crow or the vulture, From misty winds winnowed with wings.

Oh hark to the call of the crows! O’er the field by the battered old barn, The battle-scarred barn where the Marne In reedy weeds wandering flows! Oh hear you not weeping and wailing, An undertone wafted from there By the birds that are calling and sailing, On sluggard wings over that air— An undertone, always persistent, In the call of the haunted black crows, Heard plainly, distinct and insistent, In the call of the garrulous crows?