Pouched Crow

Lately while writing I've been listening to audio versions of Shakespeare plays. So no mystery if, in doublet, tights and codpiece, it reads as if I'm reciting this at the Ole Vic.

Pouched Crow

Whose flared black wing is this I see,
  In dark repose upon cold ground?
And how came it lie in this cemetery,
  Where now I walk, and which I’ve found?
He slipstreams the grass with his forward aiming head,
  As if at speed with malevolent wings half spread
He proudly mocks to fly upon the grass
  While he flies only on in death,
A crows last jape, the more undignified 
  Preceded by his macabre grin in rictus,
See, his eyes are gone, pocked black and hollow
  And the soul has flown behind the untraversable clouds
That hide the space where black things hallowed flit

Finding a stick I folded a wing
  And rolled him over on one side,
That recumbent on his back may he lie
  In a state keeping with a black bird’s pride,
Yet once done, I saw that instead I had shamed him,
  By revealing his wound, the gaping hole,
That in death he would but could not hide,
  For there I saw by empty ribs and a naked spine
Someone the contents of his chest had cleaned,
  As hollow as a butchers’ capon

Doubtless whose work was this,
  With fear and common sense dismissed
Courageous crows will mob a hawk,
  They’ll gang and follow, they’ll harry and stalk,
With their choral caws the murder sings
  As with a dodge they nip his wings,
Or for the glory of a victorious feather
  With a dive pull at his tail,
Until reckless in the game 
  Comes too close this crow
To where cabled talons fast as lightening blow,
  And by one clip his neck is broke

Never the spend thrift, the hawks keeps a frugal economy,
  Thus he has not so much as killed an enemy as caught an easy meal,
Which, once carried to a choice plucking post
  This accomplished old poulterer will
Break beak in, carve out the heart,
  Then leisurely clean the chest of all fair pickings
Yet hawks detest the taste of crow,
  They are horrid, offal, it’s all well known, 
So he took the carcass on the fly,
  And discarded it from the sky on high,
To where again has fallen our black Icarus,
  Nevermore to take the sky

I rolled him back upon his chest,
  Took a graceful knee, spoke a fowl worded prayer,
Then just walked away, leaving him to the elements,
  Fittingly in this cemetery
   To rest