Classic Poem

The Tiger

He looked into the tiger's cage; and saw,
In a far dusky corner, glaring eyes
Of burning emerald. Shot with instant awe,
His heart went cold and empty—then was filled
With the hot darkness of vast jungle-night …
In which, somehow, he wandered, while wild cries
Of peacocks shrieking on the unseen boughs
Sang through his curdling blood … (Somehow, he knew
That they were peacocks, though he'd never been
Outside Northumberland; and had only heard
One day the screel of that outlandish bird
Nigh Chillingham—a cold shriek that had thrilled
His very marrow)—while those balls of light,
Blazing his heart's hot dark to icy green,
Glared on him from a thicket of bamboo …

And, only yesterday, the whole day through,
His eyes had followed nothing but his plough's
Stiff progress up the bare and stony brae
Of the Five Acres; while, with steady hands,
He gripped the jibbing hafts; and little dreamed,
Driving his smoking team but yesterday,
Of wandering in uncanny foreign lands,
Where night was a thick horror of hot fear …

(Last night, on Eager Edge, so cold and clear,
With Cheviot rising, huge, clean-cut and stark,
To pricking stars and the keen-bladed moon!)

And now, about him, in the heavy dark,
From unseen roosts a hundred peacocks screamed;
And the fierce chatter of a scared baboon,
Somewhere behind him … Not behind him, now!
Before him, crouching, cowed, upon a bough,
As he glared on it through the tiger's eyes—
The eyes he saw no longer; for within
The cover of the bristling, twitching skin
Of the great cat he found himself—his heart,
Shot through with killing hungers, and the lust
Of bloodshed; which the peafowl's ceaseless cries,
Tearing the night, lashed to an ecstasy,
Till all his muscles tautened to a spring
Upon that craven chatterer …
Someone thrust
An arm through his; looked up at him, and laughed,
Shattering the darkness round him merrily:
And, as he heard that laughter, and the ring
Of a familiar voice, with a wild start
He quickly turned, with blue eyes dazed and daft;
And looked on Peggy's face: and the dread spell,
As his dazed eyes met hers, from off him fell.

Yet still, within the cage, the tiger stared
With eyes that through old jungle midnights glared.English