Speaker
The speaker resides with other people, who are never identified, in rural Ireland near a country road and a cow pasture. The speaker is a curious, introspective individual who seeks to understand the cows that live in the field across from him. The poem is in the first-person perspective, which emphasizes the speaker’s unique point of view. The reader follows the speaker along as he glimpses the cows through his window and later investigates the cows more thoroughly. All of the details to which the reader has access in the poem are filtered through the speaker's point of view.
Despite the speaker's central role in the poem, the reader is given few details about the speaker. The speaker never identifies or describes themselves, but reveals details only to the extent that they are necessary to understand the speaker's view of the cows. For example, we know that the speaker is residing in a rural area across the road from a field. Because of these sparse details, the speaker largely functions as a vehicle for Collins to convey his views about the cows and to reflect upon the relationship between nature and humanity. Since the speaker is not individualized, he can serve as a stand-in for humanity more broadly—the speaker represents the manmade world, while the cows that he sees represent nature.
The Noisy One
The noisy cow is individualized and discussed beyond the cows as a group. The noisy cow is a catalyst for the speaker to walk across the road and inspect the cows, because its strikingly loud noise leads the speaker to believe that it is in pain. The noisy cow is critical to the speaker’s understanding of the cows as a whole. This cow lets out a “phenomenal,” shocking, and loud noise as the cows are gathering in the field. Because it is so strikingly loud, this noise prompts the speaker to investigate and inspect the cows in the field. The speaker erroneously assumes that the noisy cow must be in pain, using striking diction (“torched,” “pierced”) to describe what he imagines might have evoked such a noise. However, the speaker sees the cow and realizes it is making this noise unprompted as a simple “announc[ement]” of its being. The noisy cow thus symbolizes the disconnect between the human perspective and the natural world. The speaker did not realize that cows could make such a noise without any instigating force.
This cow is depicted as powerful and proud. It strains its muscles to produce a “full-bodied” and “phenomenal“ sound that is extremely striking to the speaker. The poem repeatedly emphasizes how loud, bold, and “shocking” this cow is. These descriptions lead the reader to consider the cow—a seemingly domestic and unsurprising animal, particularly in a rural Irish setting—in a new light. The noisy cow encapsulates the poem’s thematic argument that humans can be shocked by the beauty and wonder of nature if they take the time to examine it.
The noisy cow is an ironic character and symbol because it stands both for its own unique individuality and for cows as a species more broadly. The cow “announces” itself through its noise, using its sound as a bold proclamation of itself. The poem focuses specifically on this cow—its noise, its appearance, and its identity. At the same time, the cow symbolizes the cows as a group. It announces its “unadulterated cowness”—this specific cow embodies the quality or state of being a cow.
Cows
Exemplifying Billy Collins’ style of focusing closely on seemingly mundane details, the cows are depicted engaging in daily activities such as grazing, stepping around their field, and resting. Notably, the word "cow" is never used in the poem (except for the reference to the noisy cow's "cowness") beyond the title, which provides the necessary context for the detailed descriptions of the cows' appearance and behavior. Small, concrete details are combined to create a realistic and carefully observed portrait of the cows, building up to the description of the noisy cow embodying the essential quality of “unadulterated cowness.” As the noisy cow suggests, the dozens of cows in the field are content to exist in their natural state and go about their routine. They feed off the fresh grass and patiently await rainfall, operating with an inherent understanding of the cyclical quality of nature.
These descriptions also intertwine the cows with their environment. Unlike the speaker, who is depicted engaging with his environment through tools, the cows do not seek to change their circumstances. They are compared to birds, a metaphor that further links them with animals and the natural world more broadly. Their black-and-white patterns are also compared to maps, a symbol of geography as well as the diversity of the natural environment. The final stanza builds on this inextricable connection between the cows and their environment by describing the noisy cow as announcing itself to various features of the natural world, such as the hills and the bay.
