Bert Kessler

Edgar Lee Masters 1868 (Garnett) – 1950 (Elkins Park)



I winged my bird,
Though he flew toward the setting sun;
But just as the shot rang out, he soared
Up and up through the splinters of golden light,
Till he turned right over, feathers ruffled,
With some of the down of him floating near,
And fell like a plummet into the grass.
I tramped about, parting the tangles,
Till I saw a splash of blood on a stump,
And the quail lying close to the rotton roots.
I reached my hand, but saw no brier,
But something pricked and stung and numbed it.
And then, in a second, I spied the rattler--
The shutters wide in his yellow eyes,
The head of him arched, sunk back in the rings of him,
A circle of filth, the color of ashes,
Or oak leaves bleached under layers of leaves.
I stood like a stone as he shrank and uncoiled
And started to crawl beneath the stump,
When I fell limp in the grass.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

49 sec read
86

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCDEFGHIJKLKMNOPQIG
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 835
Words 164
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 20

Edgar Lee Masters

Edgar Lee Masters was an American poet, biographer, and dramatist. more…

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