Country Sorrows and Country Joys

The sun, a glorious orb of burning gold
Casts its radiant life-promoting light
Upon the fertile land below, and
Long, darkling, deep'ning shadows makes.

The furrows of the ploughman's toil grim dim
And (as the sun follows its long, steep path
To that distant horizon where earth and sky do kiss)
Merge into vague, indiscriminate brownness.

Atop the hills, aglow with ruddy Abendslicht,
Sunburned autumnal copses reflect
A hundred, hundred subtle shades
Of green and brown and yellow tints.

The waving cornfields shake, glimmer, glisten,
A myriad mirrors to the glorious evening sun;
Warm, cascading streams shiver bright rivulets
Of glass, descending the dusky hillsides.

A deep red glow transfigures now the farmhouses,
Their ancient thatched roofs russet-hued;
Countless thousands of songbirds sing forth
Their innocent chorus for the coming night.

So much beauty, so much tranquillity,
Should surely uplift the beholder's heart and soul.
But all the transient beauty of this timeless scene
Cannot still the weeping of my broken heart.

Thus I pick up my trusty Arquebus,
Load it with arsenic-laced grapeshot,
And blow those squawking wingéd shitehawks
To Kingdom-Fucking-Come.