Sonnets at the English Lakes | ||
85
LXXXV. THE GRAVE OF “OLD ROSE.”
Half-credulous we hear the stories toldOf Apis or of Mnevis by the Nile,
We seldom think in this our land the while
The English Apis gets his calves of gold;
For one Europa half a world is sold,
One British Bull will buy an Indian isle!
Great painters paint, historians tell the style,
And daily papers chronicle a cold.
Here lies “Old Rose,” the faultless, docile roan,
Her death was felt wherever cattle feed;
She claimed no grey sarcophagus of stone,
No pictured Hieratics tell her breed;
In sons and daughters still she lives, while we,
Unlike our sires, forget our pedigree.
Sonnets at the English Lakes | ||