Poem#master

Aunt Jennifer's tigers prance across a screen, Bright topaz denizens of a world of green. They do not fear the men beneath the tree; They pace in sleek chivalric certainty. Aunt Jennifer's fingers fluttering through her wool find even the ivory needle hard to pull. The massive weight of uncle's wedding band sits heavily  upon Aunt Jennifer's hard  When aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by. The tigers in the panel that she made will go no prancing, proud and unafraid.

I think I could turn and live with animals, They are so placid and self-contain'd, I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition, they do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth. So they show their relations to me and I accept them, they bring me tokens of myself, they evince them plainly in their possession. I wonder where they get those tokens, Did I pass that way huge times ago and negligently drop them?

 He stalks in his vivid stripes The few steps of his cage, On pads of velvet quiet, In his quiet rage. He should be lurking in shadow, Sliding through long grass Near the water hole Where plump deer pass. He should be snarling around houses At the jungle's edge, Baring his white fangs, his claws,  Terrorising the village! But he's locked in a concrete cell, His strength behind bars, Stalking the length of his cage,  Ignoring visitors. He hears the last voice at night, The patrolling cars, And stares with with his brilliant eyes  At the brilliant stars.

 The way a crow  Shook down on me  The dust of Snow  From a hemlock tree Has given my heart A change of mood  And saved some part  Of a day I had rued.

 Some say the world will end in fire Some say in ice. Form what I've tasted of desire  I hold with those who favour fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate  To say that for destruction ice  Is also great  And would suffice.