On eves of cold, when slow coal fires, <br />rooted in basements, burn and branch, <br />brushing with smoke the city air; <br />When quartered moons pale in the sky, <br />and neons glow along the dark <br />like deadly nightshade on a briar; <br />Above the muffled traffic then <br />I hear the owl, and at his note <br />I shudder in my private chair. <br />For like an auger he has come <br />to roost among our crumbling walls, <br />his blooded talons sheathed in fur. <br />Some secret lure of time it seems <br />has called him from his country wastes <br />to hunt a newer wasteland here. <br />And where the candlabra swung <br />bright with the dancers’ thousand eyes, <br />now his black, hooded pupils stare, <br />And where the silk-shoed lovers ran <br />with dust of diamonds in their hair, <br />he opens now his silent wing, <br />And, like a stroke of doom, drops down, <br />and swoops across the empty hall, <br />and plucks a quick mouse off the stair...<br /><br />Laurie Lee<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/town-owl/
