The Buzzards

When evening came and the warm glow grew deeper     And every tree that bordered the green meadows     And in the yellow cornfields every reaper     And every corn-shock stood above their shadows     Flung eastward from their feet in longer measure,     Serenely far there swam in the sunny height     A buzzard and his mate who took their pleasure     Swirling and poising idly in golden light.     On great pied motionless moth-wings borne along,             So effortless and so strong,     Cutting each other's paths, together they glided,     Then wheeled asunder till they soared divided     Two valleys' width (as though it were delight     To part like this, being sure they could unite     So swiftly in their empty, free dominion),     Curved headlong downward, towered up the sunny steep,     Then, with a sudden lift of the one great pinion,     Swung proudly to a curve and from its height     Took half a mile of sunlight in one long sweep.     And we, so small on the swift immense hillside,     Stood tranced, until our souls arose uplifted             On those far-sweeping, wide,     Strong curves of flight,--swayed up and hugely drifted,     Were washed, made strong and beautiful in the tide     Of sun-bathed air. But far beneath, beholden     Through shining deeps of air, the fields were golden     And rosy burned the heather where cornfields ended.     And still those buzzards wheeled, while light withdrew     Out of the vales and to surging slopes ascended,     Till the loftiest-flaming summit died to blue.