Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


THE YELLOWHAMMER'S SONG by WILLIAM SHARP

First Line: OUT ON THE WASTE, A LITTLE LONELY BIRD, I FLIT AND I SING
Last Line: AH, SWEET! THE SONG THAT I SING.
Subject(s): BIRDS; MORNING; SINGING & SINGERS;

Out on the waste, a little lonely bird, I flit
and I sing;
My breast is yellow as sunshine, and light
as the wind my wing.

The golden gorse me shelters, in the tufted
grass is my nest,
And @3Sweet, sweet, sweet the world@1, though
the wind blow east or west.

The harebells chime their music, the canna
floats white in the breeze:
But as for me, I flit to and fro and I sing at
my ease.

When the thyme is dripping with dew, and
the hill-wind beareth along
The pungent scent of the gale, loudly I sing
my morning song.

When the sun beats on the gorse, the broom,
and the budding heather,
I flit from spray to spray, and my
the golden weather.

When the moor-fowl sink to their rest, and
the sky is soft rose-red,
I sing of the crescent moon and the single
star overhead.

Out on the waste, out on the waste, I flit
all day as I sing,
@3Sweet, sweet, sweet is the world -- dear world --
how beautiful everything!@1

Only a little lonely bird that loveth the
moorland waste,
And little perhaps of the joy of the world
is that which I taste;

But out on the wild, free moorlands or the
gold gorse-boughs I swing,
And @3Sweet, sweet, sweet the world; oh, sweet!
ah, sweet!@1 the song that I sing.



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