Mountain Goat

Lew R. Sarett

Rigidly silver on the peak
  Against the sky's blue flood,
A contemplative mountain goat
  Pensively chewed his cud.
Frozen his pose, as if the wind
 Had chiseled him from snow
And sunlight had put on him a glaze
  From horn to flinty toe.

Oh, solemnly he held his eyes
 On the beauty of the plain
Outspread below him in the sun,
  Shot through with fitful rain:

The checkered April-green of field,
 The poppy's butter-gold,
The valley-mist that draped the pines
 With silken fold on fold;
                                      Lew Sarett

The polished turquoise of the pools
 Deep in the hills and hollows,
That mirrored the scud of flimsy clouds,
 The satin flight of swallows.
At last he wagged his wisp of beard,
 Shattered his marble mass,
Bleated a dark sardonic "Ba-a-a!"
 And fell to munching grass.

                 BROKEN DRAKE