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| WHAT saw you in your flight to-day, | |
| Crows a-winging your homeward way? | |
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| Went you far in carrion quest, | |
| Crows that worry the sunless west? | |
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| Thieves and villains, you shameless things! | 5 |
| Black your record as black your wings. | |
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| Tell me, birds of the inky hue, | |
| Plunderous rogues—to-day have you | |
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| Seen with mischievous, prying eyes | |
| Lands where earlier suns arise? | 10 |
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| Saw you a lazy beck between | |
| Trees that shadow its breast in green, | |
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| Teased by obstinate stones that lie | |
| Crossing the current tauntingly? | |
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| Fields abloom on the farther side | 15 |
| With purpling clover lying wide, | |
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| Saw you there as you circled by, | |
| Vale-environed a cottage lie— | |
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| Girt about with emerald bands, | |
| Nestling down in its meadow lands? | 20 |
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| Saw you this on your thieving raids? | |
| Speak—you rascally renegades. | |
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| Thieved you also away from me | |
| Olden scenes that I long to see? | |
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| If O crows! you have flown since morn | 25 |
| Over the place where I was born, | |
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| Forget, will I, how black you were | |
| Since dawn, in feather and character; | |
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| Absolve, will I, your vagrant band, | |
| Ere you enter your slumber-land. | 30 |
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