Featured Poem: The Milestone by the Rabbit Burrow

We are celebrating National Rabbit Week here at The Reader and in honour of the occasion our featured poem this morning is Thomas Hardy’s ‘The Milestone by the Rabbit Burrow’, which is actually written from the point of view of a rabbit. Without wishing to disparage the whole tribe of lagomorpha, rabbits have simple worries. Still, as long as gin is allowed, who wouldn’t want to live ‘where no gins are’?

The Milestone by the Rabbit-Burrow

(On Yell’Ham Hill)

In my loamy nook
As I dig my hole
I observe men look
At a stone, and sigh
As they pass it by
To some far goal.

Something it says
To their glancing eyes
That must distress
The frail and lame,
And the strong of frame
Gladden or surprise.

Do signs on its face
Declare how far
Feet have to trace
Before they gain
Some blest champaign
Where no gins are?

–By Thomas Hardy

Posted by Chris Routledge, Powered by Qumana