Spread on the roadway,

With open-blown jackets,

Like black, soaring pinions,

They swoop down the hillside,

The Cyclists.

Seeming dark-plumaged

Birds, after carrion,

Careening and circling,

Over the dying

Of England.

She lies with her bosom

Beneath them, no longer

The Dominant Mother,

The Virile — but rotting

Before time.

The smell of her, tainted,

Has bitten their nostrils.

Exultant they hover,

And shadow the sun with

Foreboding.

***

More poems by Amy Lowell