| The Poet to the Birds |
| |
You bid me hold my peace,
Or so I think, you birds; you’ll not forgive
My kill-joy song that makes the wild song cease,
Silent or fugitive.
|
| |
Yon thrush stopt in mid-phrase
At my mere footfall; and a longer note
Took wing and fled afield, and went its ways
Within the blackbird’s throat.
|
| |
Hereditary song,
Illyrian lark and Paduan nightingale,
Is yours, unchangeable the ages long;
Assyria heard your tale;
|
| |
Therefore you do not die.
But single, local, lonely, mortal, new,
Unlike, and thus like all my race, am I,
Preluding my adieu.
|
| |
My human song must be
My human thought. Be patient till ’tis done.
I shall not hold my little peace; for me
There is no peace but one.
|