Marianne Moore — The Buffalo

Black in blazonry means prudence; and niger, unpropitious. Might hematite- black incurved compact horns on a bison have significance? The soot brown tail-tuft on a kind of lion- tail; what would that express? And John Steuart Curry's Ajax pulling grass--no ring in his nose--two birds standing on his back? though prints like this cannot show if they were black birds, not the color of the back. The modern ox does not look like the Augsburg ox's portrait. Yes, the great extinct wild Aurochs was a beast to paint, with stripe and six- foot horn-spread--decreased to Siamese-cat- Brown Swiss size, or zebu shape with white plush dewlap and warm-blooded hump; to red- skinned Hereford or to piebald Holstein. Yet some would say the sparse-haired buffalo has met human notions the best-- unlike the elephant, both jewel and jeweler in the hairs that he wears-- no white-nosed Vermont ox yoked with its twin to haul the maple sap, up to their knees in snow; no freakishly Over-Drove Ox drawn by Rowlandson, but the Indian buffalo, albino- footed, standing in the mud-lake, with a day's work to do. No white Christian heathen, way- laid by the Buddha, serves him so well as the buffalo--as mettlesome as if check- reined--free neck stretching out, and snake-tail in a half twist on flank; nor will so cheerfully assist the Sage sitting with feet at the same side, to dismount at the shrine; nor are there any ivory tusks like those two horns which when a tiger coughs, are lowered fiercely and convert the fur to harmless rubbish. The Indian buffalo, led by bare-legged herd-boys to a hay hut where they stable it, need not fear comparison with bison, with the twins, nor with anyone of ox ancestry.