The Deserted Barn
By Arthur Crew Inman
Behind the barn, the sunlight seems
To flood the long-forgotten field
With golden calm. The forest curves,
An ampitheatre of living green,
High galleried with spruce and pine,
To make enclosure of the whole
Above the tangled grass, grown rank
With weeds, piebald yellow and white
With daisies, mustard, and buttercups,
The busy insect world quickens
The air with tiny life. Somewhere,
Invisible, a whitethroat sings.
And ever, against a drop of grey
Where rises to its eaves the barn,
A myriad swallows dart and swoop,
Exquisite boomerangs of flight.
Atop the roof a weather-cock
Still stands with neck and wings upthrust
As if about to shrill his taunt,
Pathetic now, that once this world
Of the crumbling human enterprise
Which he has surveyed so long—was man’s.
