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Thread: Can any one write or get a critical appreciation on this poem by Edward Thomas

  1. #1
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    Can any one write or get a critical appreciation on this poem by Edward Thomas

    THE GALLOWS
    There was a weasel lived in the sun
    With all his family Till a keeper shot him with his gun
    And hung him up on a tree,
    Where he swings in the wind and rain,
    In the sun and in the snow
    Without pleasure, without pain,
    On the dead oak tree bough.

    There was a crow who was no sleeper
    But a thief and a murderer
    Till a very late hour; and this keeper
    Made him one of the things that were,
    To hang and flap in rain and wind
    In the sun and in the snow
    There are no more sins to be sinned
    On the dead oak tree bough.

    There was a magpie, too
    Had a long tongue and a long tail;
    He could both talk and do -
    But what did that avail?
    He, too, flaps in the wind and rain
    Alongside weasel and crow,
    Without pleasure, without pain,
    On the dead oak tree bough.

    And many other beasts
    And birds, skin, bone and feather,
    Have been taken from their feasts
    And hung up there together
    To swing and have endless leisure
    In the sun and in the snow
    Without pain, without pleasure,
    On the dead oak tree bough.

  2. #2
    The poem describes animals that the "keeper" executed and
    hung from the "dead" oak tree as if on a gallows. The animals
    (weasel, crow, magpie) are those whose behavior can be imagined
    as "criminal." The keeper is a kind of moral judge and executioner.

    I think the poem is a good one.

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