The decoys

There are some birds in these valleys

Who flutter round the careless

With intimate appeal,

By seeming kindness trained to snaring,

They feel no falseness.

Under the spell completely

They circle can serenely,

And in the tricky light

The masked hill has a purer greenness.

Their flight looks fleeter.

But fowlers, O, like foxes,

Lie ambushed in the rushes.

Along the harmless tracks

The madman keeper crawls through brushwood,

Axe under oxter.

Alas, the signal given,

Fingers on the trigger tighten.

The real unlucky dove

Must smarting fall away from brightness

Its love from living.