Rudyard Kipling

The Flight

               1930

WHEN the grey geese heard the Fool’s tread
	Too near to where they lay,
They lifted neither voice nor head,
	But took themselves away.

No water broke, no pinion whirred-
	There went no warning call.
The steely, sheltering rushes stirred
	A little—that was all.

Only the osiers understood,
	And the drowned meadows spied
What else than wreckage of a flood
	Stole outward on that tide.

But the far beaches saw their ranks
	Gather and greet and grow
By myriads on the naked banks
	Watching their sign to go;

Till, with a roar of wings that churned
	The shivering shoals to foam,
Flight after flight took air and turned
	To find a safer home;

And, far below their steadfast wedge,
	They heard (and hastened on)
Men thresh and clamour through the sedge
	Aghast that they were gone!

And, when men prayed them come anew
	And nest where they were bred,
“Nay, fools foretell what knaves will do,"
	Was all the grey geese said.