Crossing the Plains

What great yoked brutes with briskets low,
With wrinkled necks like buffalo,
With round, brown, liquid, pleading eyes,
That turn’d so slow and sad to you,
That shone like love’s eyes soft with tears,
That seem’d to plead, and make replies,
The while they bow’d their necks and drew
The creaking load; and looked at you.
Their sable briskets swept the ground,
Their cloven feet kept solemn sound.

Two sullen bullocks led the line,
Their great eyes shining bright like wine;
Two sullen captive kings were they,
That had in time held herds at bay,
And even now they crush’d the sod
With stolid sense of majesty,
And stately stepp’d and stately trod,
As if ’twere something still to be
Kings even in captivity.