Classic Poem

Black in blazonry means
prudence; and niger, unpropitious. Might
hematite—
black, compactly incurved horns on bison
have significance? The
soot-brown tail-tuft on
a kind of lion-

tail; what would that express?
And John Steuart Curry's Ajax pulling
grass—no ring
in his nose—two birds standing on the back?


The modern
ox does not look like the Augsburg ox's
portrait. Yes,
the great extinct wild Aurochs was a beast
to paint, with stripe and six-
foot horn-spread—decreased
to Siamese-cat-

Brown Swiss size or zebu-
shape, with white plush dewlap and warm-blooded
hump; to red-
skinned Hereford or to piebald Holstein. Yet
some would say the sparse-haired
buffalo has met
human notions best—

unlike the elephant,
both jewel and jeweller in the hairs
that he wears—
no white-nosed Vermont ox yoked with its twin
to haul the maple-sap,
up to their knees in
snow; no freakishly

Over-Drove Ox drawn by
Rowlandson, but the Indian buffalo,
albino-
footed, standing in a mud-lake with a
day's work to do. No white
Christian heathen, way-
laid by the Buddha,

serves him so well as the
buffalo—as mettlesome as if check-
reined—free neck
stretching out, and snake tail in a half-twist
on the flank; nor will so
cheerfully assist
the Sage sitting with

feet at the same side, to
dismount at the shrine; nor are there any
ivory
tusks like those two horns which when a tiger
coughs, are lowered fiercely
and convert the fur
to harmless rubbish.

The Indian buffalo,
led by bare-leggèd herd-boys to a hay
hut where they
stable it, need not fear comparison
with bison, with the twins,
Indeed with any/
of ox ancestry.