To The Happy Hunting Grounds

Wide windy reaches of high stubble field; A long gray road, bordered with dusty pines; A wagon moving in a 'cloud by day.' Two city sportsmen with a dove between, Breast-high upon a fence and fast asleep A solitary dove, the only dove In twenty counties, and it sick, or else It were not there. Two guns that fire as one, With thunder simultaneous and loud; Two shattered human wrecks of blood and bone! And later, in the gloaming, comes a man The worthy local coroner is he, Renowned all thereabout, and popular With many a remain. All tenderly Compiling in a game-bag the debris, He glides into the gloom and fades from sight. The dove, cured of its ailment by the shock, Has flown, meantime, on pinions strong and fleet, To die of age in some far foreign land.