Mountain Goat

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