WHAT sweeter sight will ever charm the eye Than robin come to claim his largess old, And pinnacled against the eager sky Daring the armies of the brazen cold? And wren a-running, while the storm shrouds all The swinging mill-sails and black ghosts of groves, Among the weeds that shake beneath the wall -- She well may vie with him in all our loves. The mystery of the dark birthday of spring Ever to childhood flowered into a sign As over me I saw the paired swans wing In whose wild breasts the gods made the light shine; And song and wing have measured year on year, Recorders of my solitude, till the sun Is the bright hymn of nations of the air, And evening and the dream-like owl are one. So copses green start out of time stol'n hence Because they rang with nightingales above Their fellows, so returns dear innocence At recollection of the lulling dove. For alms the redbreast comes, the wren dares run, While rook and magpie saunter through the sky, All with their kinship of the morning sun -- In what rare element they sing and fly! But oh, how bitter burns these fair ones' pain When satyr hands in cages shut their young, The old ones coming with their food in vain Till death's a mercy! Oh, how great the wrong That shuts 'em in, that starves but one small owl Snatched into glaring day and mocks his hate: And who, the wonder is, but djinn and ghoul Could steal one mothering wing for folly's bait? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE RAVEN; A CHRISTMAS TALE, TOLD BY A SCHOOL-BOY by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE THE WILLIAM P. FRYE [FEBRUARY 28, 1915] by JEANNE ROBERT FOSTER FOR LOVE'S SAKE, KISS ME ONCE AGAIN! by BEN JONSON THE TEMERAIRE by HERMAN MELVILLE RECUERDO by EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY TO THE UNKNOWN EROS: BOOK 2: 7. TO THE BODY by COVENTRY KERSEY DIGHTON PATMORE TO A FOIL'D EUROPEAN REVOLUTIONAIRE by WALT WHITMAN |