SheepSeeing a country churchyard, when the grey
Monuments walked, I with a second glance,
Doubting, postponed the apparent judgement day
To watch instead the random slow advance
Across the down of a hundred nibbling sheep.
And yet these tombs, half fnacied and half seen
In the dim world between waking and sleep,
These headstones browsing on their plot of green,
Were sheep indeed and emblems of life.
For man to dust, dust turns to grass. The butcher's knife
Works magic, and the ephermeral sheep forms pass
Through swift tombs and through silent tombs, until
One more God's acre feeds across the hill.