Across The Red Sky

Katherine Mansfield 1888 (Wellington) – 1923 (Fontainebleau, Île-de-France)



Across the red sky two birds flying,
Flying with drooping wings.
Silent and solitary their ominous flight.
All day the triumphant sun with yellow banners
Warred and warred with the earth, and when she yielded
Stabbed her heart, gathered her blood in a chalice,
Spilling it over the evening sky.
When the dark plumaged birds go flying, flying,
Quiet lies the earth wrapt in her mournful shadow,
Her sightless eyes turned to the red sky
And the restlessly seeking birds.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 30, 2023

24 sec read
436

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCDEFGAHGI
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 466
Words 82
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 11

Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield Beauchamp Murry was a prominent modernist writer of short fiction who was born and brought up in colonial New Zealand and wrote under the pen name of Katherine Mansfield. more…

All Katherine Mansfield poems | Katherine Mansfield Books

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