What are these ravens doing in our trees,
Calling on doom and outworn prophecies?—
Flying in threes.
Their sinister shadow, their funereal wing
Blots the fresh color out of everything.
They do not sing,
Nor shake their throats like all the other birds;
But, in cracked monotones or broken thirds,
Their crooked words
Cowardly and contemptuous are thrown
At scarecrows who, with business of their own,
Let them alone.