Classic Poem

The cock that crowed this dawn up, heard
along the east an earlier call
as through sunk acres bird by bird
till imminent upon sleep's coast
day-urgent messages were tossed,
forerunners of the flaring ball;

and reckoned thus: ‘Let one voice fail
our sacred task, then drowns the sun;
nor could the parted chain avail
to fish him forth or in the least
appease that Rooster of the East
by whom first daylight is begun.

So, stern like destinies, we bear
the signals westward without bound;
and always heralds waiting there
will stretch and flap and pass the shout,
and still no last . . . whence—reason it out—
last is new first; the world's egg-round!

Boast across morning each to each
this toil has made our proud estate
far other than old fables teach
which call us puppets jerked for sport;
cry, every bird is in some sort
that leader clamouring at dawngate.’