"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."

• Read the full text of “Afternoon with Irish Cows”

• “Afternoon with Irish Cows” Summary

• “Afternoon with Irish Cows” Themes

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    Humanity, Nature, and Perception

    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,

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 5-7

    though I would ...
    ... to another country.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 8-12

    Then later, I ...
    ... waiting for rain.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 13-14

    How mysterious, how ...
    ... of the afternoon.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 15-18

    But every once ...
    ... an apple with

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 19-21

    and walk across ...
    ... a long spear.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 22-25

    Yes, it sounded ...
    ... laboring upward

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 25-28

    laboring upward as ...
    ... her gaping mouth.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 29-33

    Then I knew ...
    ... the blue bay,

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 34-35

    while she regarded ...
    ... wild, shocking eye.

    

    

    

    

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• “Afternoon with Irish Cows” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

  • Alliteration

    

    

    

    

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    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

    

    

    

    

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    Where assonance appears in the poem:

    • Line 1: “few,” “who”
    • Line 3: “tuft,” “tuft”
    • Line 4: “grass”
    • Line 5: “pass”
    • Line 6: “see,” “field suddenly empty”
    • Line 7: “they,” “taken”
    • Line 11: “black,” “maps”
    • Line 12: “facing,” “waiting,” “rain”
    • Line 15: “once,” “one”
    • Line 16: “out,” “sound”
    • Line 17: “down”
    • Line 18: “knife I”
    • Line 19: “walk across,” “road,” “stone,” “wall”
    • Line 20: “see,” “being,” “torched”
    • Line 21: “or,” “pierced,” “spear”
    • Line 24: “neck outstretched,” “bellowing head”
    • Line 29: “announcing”
    • Line 30: “cowness”
    • Line 31: “out”
    • Line 32: “green fields,” “clouds”
    • Line 35: “wild,” “eye”

  • Caesura

    

    

    

    

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    Where caesura appears in the poem:

    • Line 7: “wing, flown”
    • Line 8: “later, I”
    • Line 12: “directions, waiting”
    • Line 13: “mysterious, how”
    • Line 15: “while, one”
    • Line 22: “Yes, it”
    • Line 23: “one, anchored”
    • Line 24: “outstretched, her”
    • Line 26: “rising, full-bodied”
    • Line 30: “large, unadulterated”
    • Line 35: “wild, shocking”

  • Consonance

    

    

    

    

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    Where consonance appears in the poem:

    • Line 1
    • Line 2
    • Line 3
    • Line 4
    • Line 5
    • Line 6
    • Line 7
    • Line 8
    • Line 9
    • Line 10
    • Line 11
    • Line 12
    • Line 13
    • Line 14
    • Line 15
    • Line 16
    • Line 17
    • Line 18
    • Line 19
    • Line 20
    • Line 21
    • Line 22
    • Line 23
    • Line 24
    • Line 25
    • Line 26
    • Line 27
    • Line 28
    • Line 29
    • Line 30
    • Line 31
    • Line 32
    • Line 33
    • Line 34
    • Line 35

  • Enjambment

    

    

    

    

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    Where enjambment appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-2: “field / across”
    • Lines 5-6: “window / and”
    • Lines 6-7: “empty / as”
    • Lines 9-10: “ munching / or”
    • Lines 10-11: “down / on”
    • Lines 13-14: “dumbfounded / they”
    • Lines 15-16: “them / would”
    • Lines 16-17: “phenomenal / that”
    • Lines 17-18: “paper / or”
    • Lines 18-19: “ with / and”
    • Lines 19-20: “wall / to”
    • Lines 20-21: “torched / or”
    • Lines 22-23: “see / the”
    • Lines 24-25: “head / laboring”
    • Lines 25-26: “voice / to”
    • Lines 26-27: “cry / that”
    • Lines 27-28: “belly / and”
    • Lines 29-30: “announcing / the”
    • Lines 31-32: “kind / to”
    • Lines 34-35: “shoulders / above”

  • Metaphor

    

    

    

    

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    Where metaphor appears in the poem:

    • Lines 10-11: “they would be lying down / on / ,”
    • Line 11: “the black-and-white maps of their sides”

  • Pathetic Fallacy

    

    

    

    

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    Where pathetic fallacy appears in the poem:

    • Lines 29-32: “Then I knew that she was only announcing / the large, unadulterated cowness of herself, / pouring out the ancient apologia of her kind / to all the green fields and the gray clouds,”

  • Simile

    

    

    

    

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    Where simile appears in the poem:

    • Lines 6-7: “the field suddenly empty / as if they had taken wing, flown off to another country.”
    • Line 22: “it sounded like pain”

  • Repetition

    

    

    

    

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    Where repetition appears in the poem:

    • Line 3: “from tuft to tuft”
    • Line 8: “I would”
    • Line 9: “the field would”
    • Line 10: “they would”
    • Line 13: “How mysterious, how patient”
    • Lines 15-16: “one of them / would”
    • Line 17: “I would”
    • Line 24: “her neck,” “her bellowing head”
    • Lines 32-33: “to all the green fields and the gray clouds, / to the limestone hills and the inlet of the blue bay,”

• “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
  • (Location in poem: Line 3: “tuft,” “tuft”)

• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Afternoon with Irish Cows”

  • Form

  • Meter

  • Rhyme Scheme

• “Afternoon with Irish Cows” Speaker

• “Afternoon with Irish Cows” Setting

• Literary and Historical Context of “Afternoon with Irish Cows”

• 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

    • Introduction to Poetry

    • On Turning Ten

    • The Art of Drowning

    • The History Teacher

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