Standing with his head hung down In a stupor, dreaming things: Green savannas, jungles brown, Battlefields and bellowings, Bulls undone and lions dead And vultures flapping overhead.
Dreaming things: of days he spent With his mother gaunt and lean In the valley warm and green, Full of baby wonderment, Blinking out of silly eyes At a hundred mysteries;
Dreaming over once again How he wandered with a throng Of bulls and cows a thousand strong, Wandered on from plain to plain, Up the hill and down the dale, Always at his mother's tail;
How he lagged behind the herd, Lagged and tottered, weak of limb, And she turned and ran to him Blaring at the loathly bird Stationed always in the skies, Waiting for the flesh that dies.
Dreaming maybe of a day When her drained and drying paps Turned him to the sweets and saps, Richer fountains by the way, And she left the bull she bore And he looked to her no more;
And his little frame grew stout, And his little legs grew strong, And the way was not so long; And his little horns came out, And he played at butting trees And boulder-stones and tortoises,
Joined a game of knobby skulls With the youngsters of his year, All the other little bulls, Learning both to bruise and bear, Learning how to stand a shock Like a little bull of rock.
Dreaming of a day less dim, Dreaming of a time less far, When the faint but certain star Of destiny burned clear for him, And a fierce and wild unrest Broke the quiet of his breast.
And the gristles of his youth Hardened in his comely pow, And he came to righting growth, Beat his bull and won his cow, And flew his tail and trampled off Past the tallest, vain enough,
And curved about in splendour full And curved again and snuffed the airs As who should say Come out who dares I And all beheld a bull, a Bull, And knew that here was surely one That backed for no bull, fearing none.
And the leader of the herd Looked and saw, and beat the ground, And shook the forest with his sound, Bellowed at the loathly bird Stationed always in the skies, Waiting for the flesh that dies.
Dreaming, this old bull forlorn, Surely dreaming of the hour When he came to sultan power, And they owned him master-horn, Chiefest bull of all among Bulls and cows a thousand strong.