The speaker wakes from a tangled forest of nighttime thoughts, which vanish as morning light strikes like an axe. Into this half-dreaming silence, two roosters crow together—their calls slice through the dark with a clean, silvery force. Suddenly they become vivid figures in the mind’s eye: twin trumpeters standing like heraldic supporters on either side, facing each other as if on a coat of arms. There’s a flash of ceremony and splendor, a sense that daybreak is being formally announced. Then the poem drops into an ordinary farmyard moment—milk workers lacing their boots. That shift from visionary brilliance to everyday work captures the quiet wonder of dawn: the speaker feels awe at the birds’ piercing, almost magical sound, but the world simply gets on with its routine. The mood is one of fresh clarity, poised between interior dream and plain daylight.
Cock-Crow — Summary
OUT of the wood of thoughts that grows by night To be cut down by the sharp axe of light,-- Out of the night, two cocks together crow, Cleaving the darkness with a silver blow: And bright before my eyes twin trumpeters stand, Heralds of splendour, one at either hand, Each facing each as in a coat of arms: The milkers lace their boots up at the farms.