The Poetry of
Jack Scott

The Toad in the Stone

The toad in the stone waited,
waited all alone . . . still
till the rush of years abated.
Those who poured the rock around him
passed on and under their own stones,
became no more than bones,
then . . . nothing
while the toad lay waiting,
suspended,
unblinking,
frozen in the rock,
unthinking.
Then,
to the sound of empires rumbling,
the rock from ‘round the toad came crumbling
in the unsoft dawn of war.
Exposed,
the waiting toad blinked,
withered,
and was no more.
97 ®Copyright 1955 Jack Scott. All rights reserved.
From Poemystic.com