 | Sonnets at the English Lakes |  |
52
LII. PIGEON SHOOTING AT AMBLESIDE.
A Protest.
Above the shooters, at their coward play,Beyond the leaden drifts of murderous hail,
On higher wing the homeward Rookery sail,
And clamour hoarse, loud protest and dismay;
Indignant valleys echo far away,
“Pity is dead, and prayer of no avail!”
The soft-winged prisoner dies before the pale,
Or dropped beyond, shall bleed another day.
Was it to sanction death and banish love
The Olive-bearer to the Ark returned?
Did God descend in likeness of a Dove
That men, in sport, might take the life they spurned?
So vainly, all the years in cote and grove,
Have these, unpitied, mourned, and mourned, and mourned.
| Sonnets at the English Lakes | |