The Cow

Bernard O'Dowd 1866 (Beaufort) – 1953



THIS is a rune I ravelled in the still,   
 Arrogant stare of an Australian cow—   
 ‘These prankt intruders of the hornless brow,   
Puffed up with strange illusions of their skill   
To fence, to milk, to fatten and to kill,           
 Once worshipped me with temple, rite and vow,   
 Crowned me with stars, and bade rapt millions bow   
Before what abject guess they called my will!   
  
‘To-day, this flunkey of my midden, Man,   
 Throws child-oblations in my milking byre,           
   Stifles in slums to spare me lordly fields,   
 Flatters with spotless consorts my desire,   
   And for a pail of cream his birth-right yields,   
As once in Egypt, Hellas, Ind, Iran!’

 

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

33 sec read
122

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABBAABBA XCDCDX
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 684
Words 110
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 8, 6

Bernard O'Dowd

Bernard Patrick O'Dowd was an Australian activist, educator, poet, journalist, and author of several law books and poetry books. O'Dowd worked as an assistant-librarian and later Chief Parliamentary Draughtsman in the Supreme Court at Melbourne for 48 years; he was also a co-publisher and writer for the radical paper Tocsin. Bernard O'Dowd lived to age 87. more…

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