Summary
In Stanza 4, the speaker inspects the noisy cow and realizes that it is not in pain. Rather, it is standing on all fours, extending its neck, and raising its head as it releases a powerful bellow. The speaker describes the cow’s cry as rising from its dark belly, moving through its ribs, and emerging through its open mouth.
Analysis
Stanza 4 marks the poem’s climax, as the speaker develops a greater understanding of the cows and of nature. In this stanza, the speaker examines the noisy cow and realizes that it is making a natural noise of pride and self-expression rather than a noise signifying pain. In Line 22, the speaker initially believes that the cow is making a noise of pain, which connects Stanza 4 to Stanza 3 and engages the reader’s curiosity. The stanza is then devoted exclusively to describing the cow’s sound in detail, leading both the speaker and the reader to consider the cows in a new, more fully realized light.
The central theme of this stanza is perception. Line 22 contrasts the speaker's sense of hearing with his sense of sight: “it sounded like pain until I could see…” This line calls attention to the limitations of the human perspective. The speaker cannot rely on his limited sense of hearing alone, but develops a greater understanding by seeing the cows himself. This suggests that humanity’s perspective on nature can vary based on how much an individual is willing to engage with nature and recognize its value. By examining the cow—and truly seeing it for what it is—the speaker breaks away from their preconceived notions and achieves a greater understanding of the essential quality of “cowness,” as stanza five expands upon.
The fourth stanza continues to explore the speaker's complicated perception by describing each of the cow’s constituent parts rather than the cow as a unified whole. The speaker begins by describing the cow’s legs—“anchored there on all fours.” The unexpected use of the verb “anchored” to describe the cow standing emphasizes the stability and grounding of the cow, foreshadowing its proud, bold attitude. While the cow’s legs are described as sturdy and rooted, its neck is contrastingly described as “outstretched.” This again conveys a sense of pride, as the cow extends its neck outward, taking up space, to make its loud voice heard. The word “rising” to describe the sound itself complements this description of the cow’s neck and again contributes to the imagery of pride and self-expression as the cow’s noise rises upwards, moving from an internal state to an external state. The speaker uses the cow’s head as a metonym for the cow itself, again focusing on specific body parts to contribute to a detailed, closely observed portrait of the cow: the cow’s “bellowing head” is “laboring upward,” concentrating on the power and depth contained in the cow’s noise. The word “laboring” in particular contributes to a sense of the cow’s power, as laboring connotes difficult work.
This detailed description then turns from the cow to the sound itself. The cow’s “full-bodied cry” is described as originating in the “darkness” of the cow’s belly and moving upward from the cow’s ribs to its mouth. This imagery of a rising sound, moving from darkness to the light of the exterior world, represents an internal journey of self-expression. The cow’s “apologia” (as described in the following stanza) begins from deep within it but then moves outward until it is expressed to the outside world. The imagery of a dark belly alludes to the Biblical story of Jonah, who is trapped in the belly of a whale; the use of the word “bowed” to describe the cow’s ribs contributes to this ocean imagery. By subtly invoking these nautical images, Collins symbolically connects the cow with the broader natural world. At the same time, these images emphasize the power of the cow’s noise; the noise emerging from the cow’s belly is as unexpected and powerful as Jonah emerging from the whale.
