The Death of Wolf

The clouds were covering the blazing moon,
As if it smouldered in the pool of fume;
The blackened trees were stretching to horizon,   
We marched through moist and damp in silence,
Through thickly heather and the prickly growth;  
When under fir-trees, on the sandy earth, 
We noticed trails of two great wolves we chased,
And held our breath and briskly stopped amazed,  
Listening intently to the boughs and mead
Lest we should miss a rustle of their tread.
The only sound – the whining weathercock –
Was from a castle on a mountain rock,
As high winds in the sky could rest
On solitary towers and crests
Of oaks that leaned upon the slanted cliffs,
And seemed asleep and mute and stiff.
The silence reigned as one of hunters kneeled  
And recognized the imprints sealed,  
For he was most experienced of us, 
He said, those were the freshly claws 
Of two large wolves and two wolf-cubs;
Immediately we prepared our knives. 
We hid our rifles and their shiny flicker, 
And tried to steal across the thicket;
We did not stir a step from one another,
And cautiously we moved amid the heather;
Then stopped, and I could clearly see 
Two flaming eyes in front of me,
And then, a moment later, four light forms
Were dancing and rejoiced as if the hounds   
Met their master; but the wolves played mute
Because they sensed an enemy most brute - 
A Man  - so father-wolf stood still and mother lay,
Like marble statures of the demi-gods were they,
Like Romulus and Romus of past days.
Then father-wolf came closer to his friend,
And sat and sank his claws deep into sand.  
He sensed the siege, all paths were fully blocked,
Just for a moment he seemed lost inside a flock   
Of dogs, then rushed to most ferocious dog,
And seized its throat with iron of his jaws,
Immune to dozens knives that stubbed his guts,
And gunshots blazing in his parts;
He stood thus long after the dog was choked,
Then let the breathless body drop
Under his legs, and looked around, 
And draw himself away onto the ground, 
With jabbed knives and gunshots overlay; 
He gave a wanton look at us again, 
and lay into his bloodlake without groan,
And after licking warm blood by his mouth,
He would not deign to give a sign he’d die, 
Just closed his eyes and died without a cry. 

I leaned against my rifle in deep thought
Unable to pursue his partner and his cubs,
I stood and meditated on their dole, 
They probably were waiting for his call;
I thought about the beautiful she-wolf, 
She could have fought alongside father-wolf, 
But had to run with sons that ought be taught 
Of defiance and firmness and revolt,
And how the owners of the stone and wood
Should steer away from human brood,  
With their towns and their servile dogs
That hunt for bedding and for food.

Alas, I thought, we, humans, put on airs,
While our habit much inferior than theirs!
Only the animals know how to live and die, 
And leave the sufferings behind,
And how the silence is divine;  
The rest is weakness and disgrace.
Wild Wanderer! Now I can understand 
What you implied by your last glance; 
It said, “Live with a thought and zest,
So that your soul attain the stoic crest,   
Like us, born into woods, would reach;
Yet crying, whining is what men beseech; 
Accomplish eagerly the tasks your heart aspires,
And silently meet pain when life expires”.