Home ⇒ 📌Robert Francis ⇒ Sheep
Sheep
From where I stand the sheep stand still
As stones against the stony hill.
The stones are gray
And so are they.
And both are weatherworn and round,
Leading the eye back to the ground.
Two mingled flocks –
The sheep, the rocks.
And still no sheep stirs from its place
Or lifts its Babylonian face.
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- The Sheep The Sheep adorns the landscape rural And is both singular and plural- It gives grammarians the creeps To hear one say, “A flock of sheeps.” The Sheep is gentle, meek and mild, And led in herds by man or child- Being less savage than the rabbit, Sheep are gregarious by habit. The Sheep grows wool […]...
- Sheep Thousands of sheep, soft-footed, black-nosed sheep One by one going up the hill and over the fence one by One four-footed pattering up and over one by one wiggling Their stub tails as they take the short jump and go Over one by one silently unless for the multitudinous Drumming of their hoofs as they […]...
- Counting Sheep A scientist has a test tube full of sheep. He Wonders if he should try to shrink a pasture For them. They are like grains of rice. He wonders if it is possible to shrink something Out of existence. He wonders if the sheep are aware of their tininess, If they have any sense of […]...
- Sheep and Lambs All in the April evening, April airs were abroad; The sheep with their little lambs Passed me by on the road. The sheep with their little lambs Passed me by on the road; All in the April evening I thought on the Lamb of God. The lambs were weary and crying With a weak, human […]...
- Sonnet 15 XV On The Late Massacher In Piemont Avenge O lord thy slaughter’d Saints, whose bones Lie scatter’d on the Alpine mountains cold, Ev’n them who kept thy truth so pure of old When all our Fathers worship’t Stocks and Stones, Forget not: in thy book record their groanes Who were thy Sheep and in their […]...
- Blessings God bless the little orchard brown Where the sap stirs these quickening days. Soon in a white and rosy gown The trees will give great praise. God knows I have it in my mind, The white house with the golden eaves. God knows since it is left behind That something grieves and grieves. God keep […]...
- 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
- On Moonlit Heath and Lonesome Bank On moonlit heath and lonesome bank The sheep beside me graze; And yon the gallows used to clank Fast by the four cross ways. A careless shepherd once would keep The flocks by moonlight there, * And high amongst the glimmering sheep The dead man stood on air. They hang us now in Shrewsbury jail: […]...
- The Black Sheep “The aristocratic ne’er-do-well in Canada frequently finds his way Into the ranks of the Royal North-West Mounted Police.” Extract. Hark to the ewe that bore him: “What has muddied the strain? Never his brothers before him Showed the hint of a stain.” Hark to the tups and wethers; Hark to the old gray ram: “We’re […]...
- The Hog, The Sheep, And Goat, Carrying To A FAIR Who does not wish, ever to judge aright, And, in the Course of Life’s Affairs, To have a quick, and far extended Sight, Tho’ it too often multiplies his Cares? And who has greater Sense, but greater Sorrow shares? This felt the Swine, now carrying to the Knife; And whilst the Lamb and silent Goat […]...
- The Eagle and the Mole Avoid the reeking herd, Shun the polluted flock, Live like that stoic bird, The eagle of the rock. The huddled warmth of crowds Begets and fosters hate; He keeps above the clouds His cliff inviolate. When flocks are folded warm, And herds to shelter run, He sails above the storm, He stares into the sun. […]...
- THE SHEPHERD'S LAMENT ON yonder lofty mountain A thousand times I stand, And on my staff reclining, Look down on the smiling land. My grazing flocks then I follow, My dog protecting them well; I find myself in the valley, But how, I scarcely can tell. The whole of the meadow is cover’d With flowers of beauty rare; […]...
- The Travelling Post Office The roving breezes come and go, the reed-beds sweep and sway, The sleepy river murmers low, and loiters on its way, It is the land of lots o’time along the Castlereagh. . . .. . . . . The old man’s son had left the farm, he found it full and slow, He drifted to […]...
- In May Yes, I will spend the livelong day With Nature in this month of May; And sit beneath the trees, and share My bread with birds whose homes are there; While cows lie down to eat, and sheep Stand to their necks in grass so deep; While birds do sing with all their might, As though […]...
- Nymphs Where are ye now, O beautiful girls of the mountain, Oreads all? Nothing at all stirs here save the drip of the fountain; Answers our call Only the heart-glad thrush, in the Vale of Thrushes; Stirs in the brake But the dew-bright ear of the hare in his couch of rushes Listening, awake....
- Beneath Thy Cross Am I a stone, and not a sheep, That I can stand, O Christ, beneath thy cross, To number drop by drop Thy Blood’s slow loss, And yet not weep? Not so those women loved Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee; Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly; Not so the thief was moved; Not so […]...
- Hymn to Pan SING his praises that doth keep Our flocks from harm. Pan, the father of our sheep; And arm in arm Tread we softly in a round, Whilst the hollow neighbouring ground Fills the music with her sound. Pan, O great god Pan, to thee Thus do we sing! Thou who keep’st us chaste and free […]...
- Willard Fluke My wife lost her health, And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds. Then that woman, whom the men Styled Cleopatra, came along. And we we married ones All broke our vows, myself among the rest. Years passed and one by one Death claimed them all in some hideous form, And I was borne along […]...
- Where? My snowy eupatorium has dropped Its silver threads of petals in the night; No signal told its blossoming had stopped; Its seed-films flutter silent, ghostly white: No answer stirs the shining air, As I ask, “Where?” Beneath the glossy leaves of winter-green Dead lilly-bells lie low, and in their place A rounded disk of pearly […]...
- The Alchemist in the City My window shews the travelling clouds, Leaves spent, new seasons, alter’d sky, The making and the melting crowds: The whole world passes; I stand by. They do not waste their meted hours, But men and masters plan and build: I see the crowning of their towers, And happy promises fulfill’d. And I – perhaps if […]...
- The Mountain Squatter Here in my mountain home, On rugged hills and steep, I sit and watch you come, O Riverinia Sheep! You come from the fertile plains Where saltbush (sometimes) grows, And flats that (when it rains) Will blossom like the rose. But when the summer sun Gleams down like burnished brass, You have to leave your […]...
- Fields of Soria Hills of silver plate, Grey heights, dark red rocks Through which the Duero bends Its crossbow arc Round Soria, shadowed oaks, Stone dry-lands, naked mountains, White roads and river poplars, Twilights of Soria, warlike and mystical, Today I feel, for you, In my hearts depths, sadness, Sadness of love! Fields of Soria, Where it seems […]...
- At Algeciras – A Meditaton Upon Death The heron-billed pale cattle-birds That feed on some foul parasite Of the Moroccan flocks and herds Cross the narrow Straits to light In the rich midnight of the garden trees Till the dawn break upon those mingled seas. Often at evening when a boy Would I carry to a friend – Hoping more substantial joy […]...
- Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
- Psalm 50 part 2 v.10,11,14,15,23 C. M. Obedience is better than sacrifice. Thus saith the Lord, “The spacious fields, And flocks, and herds, are mine; O’er all the cattle of the hills I claim a right divine. “I ask no sheep for sacrifice, Nor bullocks burnt with fire; To hope and love, to pray and praise, Is all that […]...
- Cape Breton Out on the high “bird islands,” Ciboux and Hertford, The razorbill auks and the silly-looking puffins all stand With their backs to the mainland In solemn, uneven lines along the cliff’s brown grass-frayed edge, While the few sheep pastured there go “Baaa, baaa.” (Sometimes, frightened by aeroplanes, they stampede And fall over into the sea […]...
- A Sort Of A Song Let the snake wait under His weed And the writing Be of words, slow and quick, sharp To strike, quiet to wait, Sleepless. -through metaphor to reconcile The people and the stones. Compose. (No ideas But in things) Invent! Saxifrage is my flower that splits The rocks....
- The Wildy Ones The sheep are in the silver wood, The cows are in the broom; The goats are in the wild mountain And won’t be home by noon. My mother sang that olden tune Most every night, And to her newest she would croon By candle light; While cuddling in the velvet gloom I’d dream of cows […]...
- The Peripheries of Love Through waning afternoons we glide The watery peripheries of love. A silence, a quietude falls. Above us–the sagging pavilions of clouds. Below us–rough pebbles slowly worn smooth Grate in the gentle turbulence Of yesterday’s forgotten rains. Later, the moon like a virgin Lifts her stricken white face And the waters rise Toward some unfathomable shore. […]...
- VII. At a Village in Scotland O NORTH! as thy romantic vales I leave, And bid farewell to each retiring hill, Where thoughtful fancy seems to linger still, Tracing the broad bright landscape; much I grieve That mingled with the toiling croud, no more I shall return, your varied views to mark, Of rocks winding wild, and mountains hoar, Or castle […]...
- The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
- Temporary Poem Of My Time Hebrew writing and Arabic writing go from east to west, Latin writing, from west to east. Languages are like cats: You must not stroke their hair the wrong way. The clouds come from the sea, the hot wind from the desert, The trees bend in the wind, And stones fly from all four winds, Into […]...
- Leisure What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare. No time to stand beneath the boughs And stare as long as sheep or cows. No time to see, when woods we pass, Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass. No time to see, in broad daylight, Streams full […]...
- Paudeen Indignant at the fumbling wits, the obscure spite Of our old paudeen in his shop, I stumbled blind Among the stones and thorn-trees, under morning light; Until a curlew cried and in the luminous wind A curlew answered; and suddenly thereupon I thought That on the lonely height where all are in God’s eye, There […]...
- Sonnet III THe souerayne beauty which I doo admyre, Witnesse the world how worthy to be prayzed: The light wherof hath kindled heauenly iyre, In my fraile spirit by her from basenesse raysed. That being now with her huge brightnesse dazed, Base thing I can no more endure to view: But looking still on her I stand […]...
- Amoretti III: The Sovereign Beauty The sovereign beauty which I do admire, Witness the world how worthy to be praised: The light whereof hath kindled heavenly fire In my frail spirit, by her from baseness raised; That being now with her huge brightness dazed, Base thing I can no more endure to view; But looking still on her, I stand […]...
- Brooding Grief A yellow leaf from the darkness Hops like a frog before me. Why should I start and stand still? I was watching the woman that bore me Stretched in the brindled darkness Of the sick-room, rigid with will To die: and the quick leaf tore me Back to this rainy swill Of leaves and lamps […]...
- The Folly Of Being Comforted One that is ever kind said yesterday: ‘Your well-beloved’s hair has threads of grey, And little shadows come about her eyes; Time can but make it easier to be wise Though now it seems impossible, and so All that you need is patience.’ Heart cries, ‘No, I have not a crumb of comfort, not a […]...
- The Scribe What lovely things Thy hand hath made: The smooth-plumed bird In its emerald shade, The seed of the grass, The speck of the stone Which the wayfaring ant Stirs and hastes on! Though I should sit By some tarn in thy hills, Using its ink As the spirit wills To write of Earth’s wonders, Its […]...
- At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...