Dirge to a Dead Owl

Silent, mysterious, on wings of down, 
A swift, deceptive presence in the cover, 
Vaguely irresolute, soft-breasted, brown. 
Bird of Minerva, tawny-eyed moon-lover. 
You faced the sunshine mid the fir-trees gaunt, 
Roused by the beaters' distant sticks a-tapping. 
From some sequestered, hidden, noontide haunt. 
Where doubtless you'd been napping. 

Now all that's mortal of you, limp and dead. 
Lies where a few pale, floating plumes still fly light; 
Your little ghost, I like to think, has sped 
To the dim nether world of endless twilight, 
(Fit paradise for one who loved full well 
The empty dark, those shores forlorn, abhorrent,) 
To sail for ever o'er the asphodel. 
By Styx's gloomy torrent! 

Meanwhile with hasty hands the mould I'll heap 
Over your warm, uncaring, earthly habit, 
Over the pinions that no more may sweep 
Upon the unsophisticated rabbit; 
Lost to the daylight (which you couldn't brook, 
You loathed that sunrise bore, the dull but good cock), 
None of the guns shall guess that I mistook 
You for the sweepstakes woodcock.