-
“Afternoon with Irish Cows” Introduction
-
"Afternoon with Irish Cows" was written by the American poet Billy Collins. Composed during an academic stay in Ireland, the poem's subject is exactly what the title suggests—some cows in a field. The speaker relates how these cows are part of the daily fabric of life, often visible from the window of the speaker's cottage. Most of the time the cows are chewing grass or merely sitting. Sometimes, however, the cows aren't there, which puzzles the speaker. On other occasions, one of the cows will let a cry so strong and imposing that the speaker feels one of them must be in pain. Rushing out to see the cows, the speaker reinterprets these cries as the cows stamping their authority on their environment—proving their own "cowness."
-
-
“Afternoon with Irish Cows” Summary
-
There was a herd of cows in the field near where we used to live. All day long they would tread the grass, lowering their heads down to eat. Occasionally, I'd look out of the window and be surprised to find the field empty, as though the cows had flown away like birds.
But then I'd look again, opening our blue door, and they would be back in the field eating grass. Or they'd be lying on their sides, which looked like black-and-white-maps, facing in different directions and anticipating rain. They seem like strange, calm, and puzzled creatures in the long afternoons.
Every now and then, I'd hear an incredible sound from the field. I would stop whatever I was doing and head out to check on the cows, assuming that they were being tortured.
Though it sounded like a cry of pain, it wasn't. One single cow, sturdy on her four legs and craning upwards, was lowing loudly. This astonishing sound began in her belly and went up through her ribs before exiting the mouth.
I realized that she was declaring her own identity to the world around her, expressing her own cowness. She was making a spirited defense of cows in general, calling out to the surrounding nature. At the same time, she was looking at me over the wall with one astonishing eye.
-
-
“Afternoon with Irish Cows” Themes
-
Humanity, Nature, and Perception
“Afternoon with Irish Cows” explores the relationship between humankind and the animal kingdom. The poem focuses on the speaker’s observations of a herd of cows in a field and argues unsentimentally that the cows represent a kind of wonder and mystery. Yet the poem is not solely focused on the cows. It also argues that the ability to perceive such wonder in the cows depends on the mindset of the perceiver. In making this argument, and in showing how the speaker comes to see and know the cows, the poem implicitly calls on its readers to look at the world with fresh eyes.
At first, the speaker describes the cows as fairly unremarkable creatures. The speaker, who seems to be living in a cottage across the street from a field, often sees the cows going about their usual business—eating grass, standing around, or lying down in the rain. And as the poem progresses, the speaker's observations of the cows lead to a deeper understanding of the relationship between humans and nature.
At one point, for example, the speaker hears what sounds like a cry of pain coming from one of the cows. The speaker goes out to check on the cows, expecting something extraordinary to be happening. A closer look reveals, however, that the sound is nothing special: the cow is just mooing. Yet in this moment the poem offers a kind of twist, as the speaker does not just leave it at that. Instead, the speaker pays close attention to the mooing cow. The speaker looks and sees in detail: the cow’s “neck outstretched, her bellowing head / laboring upward,” the sound echoing “up through her bowed ribs into her gaping mouth.” And this close attention yields insight: the speaker realizes that the cow is “announcing” her essential “cowness.”
The speaker then calls the cry the cow’s “ancient apologia of her kind”—the cow’s spirited defense of the place of cows in the world. Of course, there is an element of projection here, in that the speaker is attributing human communication to the cow. The speaker can’t actually fully understand the cow’s fundamental “cowness”—after all, cows aren't people. Yet the speaker’s recognition that the cow is beyond human comprehension heightens the sense of wonder, mystery, and even majesty that the cows come to represent. For the speaker, the cow's regular behavior transforms from something ordinary—just a cow being a cow—to something profound: a cow being a cow. By paying close attention and being open to wonder in the natural world, the speaker has become connected to a wonder that was always there, but which the speaker had never before experienced.
The speaker’s comment that the cow’s cry is an assertion of its place in nature has a second function in the poem: it subtly asks the reader to consider humankind’s place in nature, too. The poem emphasizes this idea as the speaker describes the cow casting its own gaze on the speaker (and perhaps the reader). It's easy for a human to think that cows—which we eat and milk—exist for humans. But the speaker’s description of the cow’s “wild, shocking eye” asserts the cow’s independence and uniqueness from humans.
This moment forces the speaker and reader to wonder what the cow sees when it looks at a human being. Is it really true that a person is more intelligent than a cow? Perhaps, instead, people and cows represent two different types of existence and intelligence. In asking such questions, the poem avoids romanticizing nature, preferring to acknowledge people’s limitations when it comes to communicating with the world around them. The poem finds in nature a glory and wonder that humans can experience—but only if they approach with a certain humility.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-35
-
-
Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Afternoon with Irish Cows”
-
Lines 1-4
There were a ...
... the soft grass,The poem's title sets up its opening line, making it clear it's talking about cows. In this stanza, the speaker gives a general sense of the speaker's relationship to the cows. The speaker lives in a cottage in Ireland, somewhere near a field, and often sees the cows going about their usual business—mainly just eating grass! Sometimes, though, the cows are not there when the speaker looks out.
The first four lines intentionally set up an atmosphere of everyday life—time passing in a way that is fairly mundane and unremarkable. Note how the entire stanza—like almost all of the other stanzas—is one long sentence. This, coupled with the plainness of the language, makes the poem feel very prosaic; that is, ordinary and even unpoetic. Of course, this is a deliberate strategy to help make the poem's argument that wonder and mystery exist even in places where they don't seem obvious—like a herd of cows, for example.
Though the language is distinctly down-to-earth, these four lines contain subtle poetic effects. An /f/ sound is established, first through alliteration in line 1 ("few" and "field") and then as consonance in lines 3 and 4 ("tuft" and "soft"). This subtly brings the scene to life, conveying the softness of the grass upon which the cows stand. At this point in the poem, the speaker hasn't yet gained any deep insight into the cows or what they seem to represent. In these establishing lines, the cows seem almost dumb—they don't do much, and their "big heads" seem lumbering and kind of stupid. This is part of the way the poem lures the reader in, allowing for the later twist that paints the cows in a very different light.
-
Lines 5-7
though I would ...
... to another country.
Unlock all 286 words of this analysis of Lines 5-7 of “Afternoon with Irish Cows,” and get the Line-by-Line Analysis for every poem we cover.
Plus so much more...
Get LitCharts A+ -
Lines 8-12
Then later, I ...
... waiting for rain. -
Lines 13-14
How mysterious, how ...
... of the afternoon. -
Lines 15-18
But every once ...
... an apple with -
Lines 19-21
and walk across ...
... a long spear. -
Lines 22-25
Yes, it sounded ...
... laboring upward -
Lines 25-28
laboring upward as ...
... her gaping mouth. -
Lines 29-33
Then I knew ...
... the blue bay, -
Lines 34-35
while she regarded ...
... wild, shocking eye.
-
-
“Afternoon with Irish Cows” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
-
Alliteration
Alliteration is used here and there throughout "Afternoon with Irish cows." The first example is in line 1:
There were a few dozen who occupied the field
The /f/ sound is a feature throughout the first stanza, used both in alliteration and consonance within words. This is a gentle, muffled sound that helps build a picture of the soft, turfy Irish grass on which the cows spend their days.
Lines 6 and 7 use the same alliteration, even though the words are quite far apart:
and look out to see the field suddenly empty
as if they had taken wing, flown off to another countryIndeed, even line 9 in the following stanza uses the same alliteration, helping the poem build its opening atmosphere of quiet and calm: "and again the field would be full of their munching." In the first two stanzas, the poem conjures a sense of the mundane—not much happens other than the speaker occasionally seeing cows through a window. The prominent /f/ sound helps lure the reader into this lull, the "long quiet of the afternoon."
The third stanza is the key shift in the poem, breaking the gentle spell of the first two stanzas. Here, a cow lets out a "sound so phenomenal" that it disrupts the speaker's own routine. To match the loud sound made by the cow, the poem turns up its own equivalent volume by featuring more alliteration (as well as assonance and consonance), and making it more varied. In line 16, "sound" and "so" alliterate; in the following line "put" and "paper" create a harsh plosive /p/ sound conveying urgency:
would let out a sound so phenomenal
that I would put down the paperElsewhere in the stanza, /s/ consonants keep up this prominent use of poetic sound ("stone," "see," "side," and "spear" all alliterate).
The next key example of alliteration is in lines 27 and 28, the last two lines of the fourth stanza:
that began in the darkness of her belly
and echoed up through her bowed ribs into her gaping mouth.These lines gather /b/ sounds together in a way that represents the formation of the cow's "full-bodied cry" (which starts in the belly and echoes up through the ribs). It's another plosive sound, requiring the stopping of airflow when read out loud—this makes the alliteration more dramatic and noticeable.
One more example is in lines 34 and 35, the poem's final two lines:
while she regarded my head and shoulders
above the wall with one wild, shocking eye.These /w/ and /sh/ sounds seem to bring the poem into focus around its closing image—the cow's one staring eye. It helps make the ending more unsettling, with the reversal of perspective landing not just on the speaker, but the reader too.
Where alliteration appears in the poem:- Line 1: “few,” “field”
- Line 2: “where,” “we”
- Line 3: “tuft,” “tuft”
- Line 4: “soft”
- Line 5: “sometimes”
- Line 6: “see,” “field,” “suddenly”
- Line 7: “flown”
- Line 8: “would,” “front”
- Line 9: “field,” “would,” “full”
- Line 10: “would”
- Line 11: “white”
- Line 12: “waiting”
- Line 13: “How,” “how”
- Line 15: “once,” “while,” “one”
- Line 16: “would,” “sound,” “so”
- Line 17: “put,” “paper”
- Line 18: “with”
- Line 19: “walk ,” “stone,” “wall”
- Line 20: “see,” “which,” “one,” “was”
- Line 21: “side,” “with,” “spear”
- Line 22: “sounded,” “see”
- Line 23: “noisy”
- Line 24: “her,” “neck,” “her”
- Line 27: “began,” “belly”
- Line 28: “her,” “bowed,” “her”
- Line 29: “Then,” “that”
- Line 32: “green,” “gray”
- Line 33: “blue,” “bay”
- Line 34: “while,” “she,” “shoulders”
- Line 35: “wall,” “with,” “one,” “wild,” “shocking”
-
Assonance
Unlock all 338 words of this analysis of Assonance in “Afternoon with Irish Cows,” and get the poetic device analyses for every poem we cover.
Plus so much more...
Get LitCharts A+ -
Caesura
-
Consonance
-
Enjambment
-
Metaphor
-
Pathetic Fallacy
-
Simile
-
Repetition
-
-
“Afternoon with Irish Cows” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Tuft
- Taken Wing
- Dumbfounded
- Phenomenal
- Bellowing
- Laboring
- Bowed
- Unadulterated
- Apologia
- Limestone
- Inlet
Tuft-
(Location in poem: Line 3: “tuft,” “tuft”)
A small clump of grass.
-
Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Afternoon with Irish Cows”
-
Form
"Afternoon with Irish Cows" consists of five seven-line stanzas—a.k.a. septets. The poem doesn't fit into a strict poetic form, and this helps with its generally down-to-earth, conversational tone.
It's interesting to note the way that each stanza, apart from the second, consists of one long sentence. This makes each stanza feel like its own distinct thought, and gives the poem a sense of progression as it goes from one stanza to the next. Indeed, this matches the speaker's own journey. In the beginning of the poem, the speaker's interaction with the cows is one of distracted observation—but by the last stanza there is a much more focused and tangible sense of awe.
The key moment in this development is stanza three. Here, the poem makes its turn, shifting the focus onto what the speaker later calls the "full-bodied cry" made by one of the cows. This opens the poem up, making it more of a philosophical inquiry. Indeed, such is the searching nature of the poem after this point that even the cow participates in it, looking back at the speaker—and even the reader—with a questioning gaze. That is, the cow stops being the observed, and becomes the observer.
-
Meter
"Afternoon with Irish Cows" is doesn't follow a metrical pattern. Instead, the poem opts for free verse. This allows the poem to unfold in a casual, conversational way. The poem follows the rhythms of natural speech rather than the more strictly organized sound of metrical poetry. This makes sense, given that the poem focuses on something that is, upon first glance, pretty ordinary: a bunch of cows in a field. Of course, the poem's speaker eventually finds a sense of mystery and wonder in this seemingly mundane scene, just as the reader may find eloquence and beauty despite the casual-sounding nature of the poem.
-
Rhyme Scheme
"Afternoon with Irish Cows" is an unrhymed poem. As noted in our discussion of Meter, it is written in free verse, which prevents the poem from sounding too formal or controlled. Overall, Collins opts for a conversational tone—and perhaps regular rhymes would feel out of place with this sound. Instead, the poem's language unfolds naturally, casually, allowing the speaker's insight to go where it will without worrying about sticking to a specific pattern of sounds.
-
-
“Afternoon with Irish Cows” Speaker
-
"Afternoon with Irish Cows" is told from a first-person perspective, though the reader learns little about the speaker's identity. Given that he spent time working in Ireland, Collins is often taken to be the speaker in the poem—though the identity of the speaker isn't as important as the way the speaker perceives the cows. Indeed, the speaker is really just a kind of spokesperson for humanity—just as the cow is a representative of its own species.
The speaker narrates the poem like an anecdote, talking generally of a stay in Ireland. The speaker lived somewhere rural, and from the windows could often see cows in the nearby field. Just as the cows would go about their daily business, the speaker was often occupied with everyday tasks. But the cows fascinated the speaker, who found them a creature of curiosity and intrigue. Indeed, the speaker's powers of observations become more focused as the poem goes on, with the last three stanzas considering in-depth the "full-bodied cry" of one of the cows.
-
-
“Afternoon with Irish Cows” Setting
-
The poem takes place by a field in the countryside, which is "across the road" from the speaker's home and often occupied by cows. On another level, the poem can be thought of as taking place in the speaker's memory. The speaker reflects on the cows the speaker used to see while living near this field, likely in rural Ireland (where Collins spent time). Accordingly, the poem is somewhat pastoral, conjuring a scene of rural Irish life—green fields, gray clouds, hills, and blue water. At times, the speaker is depicted in a house, making this the poem's sole interior space.
It's interesting to note the differences between the speaker's observations in the house versus out in the field itself. At home, the speaker's gaze is somewhat more detached—the speaker reflects on the cows with a degree of amusement, imagining them flying away whenever they are out of view. But when the speaker is actually in the presence of the cows—or the main cow that makes the loud noise—the nature of the speaker's observations changes. Suddenly, the cow seems more connected to thousands of years of evolution, its cry linking its own "cowness" to all the cows that came before.
-
-
Literary and Historical Context of “Afternoon with Irish Cows”
Literary Context
Billy Collins is one of America's most popular poets, and this poem's down-to-earth humor and conversational tone are typical of his work. "Afternoon With Irish Cows" first appeared in his 1998 collection Picnic, Lightning.
As the poem's title hints, Collins wrote it while teaching in Ireland—a country with a rich literary history. Irish poets Seamus Heaney and Paul Muldoon wrote often about the landscape of their homeland. Readers might want to check out Heaney’s "Death of a Naturalist" or Muldoon's "Hedgehog," which, like Collins's poem, both reflect on humanity's relationship with animals and the natural world more broadly.
Collins himself cites the free verse of the Beat poets like Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti as significant influences in his development as a poet. He also describes the modernist 20th-century poet Wallace Stevens as a major source of inspiration. (Collins has said his "life goal" as a young poet was to be seen "as a third-rate Wallace Stevens.")
Collins has been a professor of English since 1968 and often writes about education and the classroom (for instance, in "The History Teacher") and about poetry itself. One of the most popular living poets, he served as the Poet Laureate of the U.S. from 2001 to 2003.
Historical Context
Billy Collins composed "Afternoon with Irish Cows" while visiting Ireland. Though the poem doesn’t explicitly reference the time period in which it was written, its call to pay closer attention to the natural world might reflect some distinctly modern anxieties about human beings' relationship to each other and to the planet.
The collection in which the poem appeared, Picnic, Lighting, came out in 1998. While social media and smartphones were still a ways away, the world was nevertheless rapidly changing. Cell phones and personal computers were becoming increasingly widespread, for example, and the late '80s/early '90s also marked a dramatic shift in public awareness of climate change. The poem's appreciation of a simple, pastoral setting in rural Ireland might be informed by the growing availability of new technologies as well as humanity's failure to protect the environment.
-
More “Afternoon with Irish Cows” Resources
-
External Resources
-
Animal Poems — A "greatest hits" of poetry that takes animals as its initial subject matter.
-
Collins Reads the Poem — A 2008 reading of "Afternoon with Irish Cows" by the poet himself.
-
Collins in the Paris Review — An interview with Billy Collins shortly after he was appointed poet laureate to the Library of Congress.
-
Collins's Bio and More Poems — A valuable resource from the Poetry Foundation on Collins's life and work.
-
Ten Unusual Facts about Cows — There's a lot to learn about these fascinating creatures!
-
-
LitCharts on Other Poems by Billy Collins
-
