AT Nine Rivers, in the tenth year, in winter, -- heavy snow; The river-water covered with ice and the forests broken with their load. The birds of the air, hungry and cold, went flying east and west; And with them flew a migrant "yen," loudly clamouring for food. Among the snow it pecked for grass; and rested on the surface of the ice: It tried with its wings to scale the sky; but its tired flight was slow. The boys of the river spread a net and caught the bird as it flew; They took it in their hands to the city-market and sold it there alive. I that was once a man of the North am now an exile here: Bird and man, in their different kind, are each strangers in the south. And because the sight of an exiled bird wounded an exile's heart, I paid your ransom and set you free, and you flew away to the clouds. Yen, Yen, flying to the clouds, tell me, whither shall you go? Of all things I bid you, do not fly to the land of the northwest; In Huai-hsi there are rebel bands that have not been subdued; And a thousand thousand armoured men have long been camped in war. The official army and the rebel army have grown old in their opposite trenches; The soldier's rations have grown so small, they'll be glad of even you. The brave boys, in their hungry plight, will shoot you and eat your flesh; They will pluck from your body those long feathers and make them into arrow-wings! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE CHOIR INVISIBLE by MARY ANN EVANS THREE FRIENDS OF MINE: 5; SONNET by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW SING-SONG; A NURSERY RHYME BOOK: 20 by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI THE PRAIRIE-GRASS DIVIDING by WALT WHITMAN THE VOICE OF THE SEA by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH AEOLIAN HARP (2) by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM |