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.