Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


THE CYCLISTS by AMY LOWELL

Poet Analysis

First Line: SPREAD ON THE ROADWAY,
Last Line: And shadow the sun with / Foreboding
Subject(s): BICYCLES; ENGLAND; DECAY; CYCLING; ENGLISH; ROT; DECADENCE;

Spread on the roadway,
With open-blown jackets,
Like black, soaring pinions,
They swoop down the hillside,
The Cyclists.

Seeming dark-plumaged
Birds, after carrion,
Careening and circling,
Over the dying
Of England.

She lies with her bosom
Beneath them, no longer
The Dominant Mother,
The Virile-but rotting
Before time.

The smell of her, tainted,
Has bitten their nostrils.
Exultant they hover,
And shadow the sun with
Foreboding.



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