Lycidas’ Bull

Lycidas’ bull, big as a house! Lycidas died. We got his bull. The town showed up and clapped. With an iron chain we chained him

To an oak as old as Cromwell. A green hill of wooden stone, Elephant-fat. But Lycidas’ bull Would not submit. He bellowed

Awfully at night, raged and roamed, Ripped the earth and all around him. (He missed Lycidas, the poor thing.) At last he collapsed, and slept a week.

But his iron chain had sawn the oak. When he woke it cracked. Where he went, Big as a house, he towed that tree. And many were torn in its twigs alone.

Then we stood; took heart; and forged A new chain for the bull of Lycidas, Of carbon-fiber and black titanium. We pinned him with levers. We bent

His neck. We riveted his chain To a redwood older than Columbus.