Song-Time Is Over
I will come no more awhile,
O Song-time is over.
A fire is burning in my heart,
I was ever a rover.
You will hear me no more awhile,
The birds are dumb,
And a voice in the distance calls
"Come," and "Come,"
Poems on the topic: bird
Poems on the topic “bird” on Poets.by.
The Church-Bell
As I was lying in my bed
I heard the church-bell ring;
Before one solemn word was said
A bird began to sing.
I heard a dog begin to bark
And a bold crowing cock;
The bell, between the cold and dark,
Tolled. It was five o'clock.
The church-bell tolled, and the bird sang,
A clear true voice he had;
The cock crew, and the church-bell rang,
I knew it had gone mad.
A hand reached down from the dark skies,
It took the bell-rope thong,
The bell cried "Look! Lift up your eyes!"
The clapper shook to song.
The Singer
In the dim light of the golden lamp
The singer stands and sings,
And the songs rise up like coloured bubbles
Or birds with shining wings.
And the movement of the merry or plaintive keys
Sounds in the silent air
Till the listener feels the room no more
But only music there.
And still from the sweet and rounded mouth
The delicate songs arise,
Like floating bubbles whose colours are
The coloured melodies.
Alms
My heart is what it was before,
A house where people come and go;
But it is winter with your love,
The sashes are beset with snow.
I light the lamp and lay the cloth,
I blow the coals to blaze again;
But it is winter with your love,
The frost is thick upon the pane.
I know a winter when it comes:
The leaves are listless on the boughs;
I watched your love a little while,
And brought my plants into the house.
I water them and turn them south,
I snap the dead brown from the stem;
But it is winter with your love,--
I only tend and water them.
Anxiety
The hoar-frost crumbles in the sun,
The crisping steam of a train
Melts in the air, while two black birds
Sweep past the window again.
Along the vacant road, a red
Bicycle approaches; I wait
In a thaw of anxiety, for the boy
To leap down at our gate.
He has passed us by; but is it
Relief that starts in my breast?
Or a deeper bruise of knowing that still
She has no rest.
Patience
A WIND comes from the north
Blowing little flocks of birds
Like spray across the town,
And a train, roaring forth,
Rushes stampeding down
With cries and flying curds
Of steam, out of the darkening north.
Whither I turn and set
Like a needle steadfastly,
Waiting ever to get
The news that she is free;
But ever fixed, as yet,
To the lode of her agony.
Calls
Because I have called to you
as the flame flamingo calls,
or the want of a spotted hawk
is called —
because in the dusk
the warblers shoot the running
waters of short songs to the
homecoming warblers —
because
the cry here is wing to wing
and song to song —
i am waiting,
waiting with the flame flamingo,
the spotted hawk, the running water
warbler —
waiting for you.
Purple Martins
If we were such and so, the same as these, maybe we too would be slingers and sliders, tumbling half over in the water mirrors, tumbling half over at the horse heads of the sun, tumbling our purple numbers.
Twirl on, you and your satin blue.
Be water birds, be air birds.
Be these purple tumblers you are.
Dip and get away
From loops into slip-knots,
Write your own ciphers and figure eights.
It is your wooded island here in Lincoln park.
Everybody knows this belongs to you.
Five fat geese
Eat grass on a sod bank
And never count your slinging ciphers, your sliding figure eights,
A man on a green paint iron bench,
Slouches his feet and sniffs in a book,
And looks at you and your loops and slip-knots,
From the Shore
A LONE gray bird,
Dim-dipping, far-flying,
Alone in the shadows and grandeurs and tumults
Of night and the sea
And the stars and storms.
Out over the darkness it wavers and hovers.
Out into the gloom it swings and batters.
Out into the wind and the rain and the vast,
Out into the pit of a great black world,
Where fogs are at battle, sky-driven, sea-blown.
Love of mist and rapture of flight.
Glories of chance and hazards of death
On its eager and palpitant wings.
Out into the deep of the great dark world.
Beyond the long borders where foam and drift
Of the sundering waves are lost and gone
The Green Thicket
All in a green thicket I heard a bird sing,
And blithe though his song was it made the tears spring,
To hear the bird sing as he swung on his spray,
All in a green thicket at break of the day.
All in a green thicket his song he did pour
That told of the Springs that shall come nevermore,
That sang of sweet blossoms, now faded and dry.
All in a green thicket in Aprils gone by.
All in a green thicket that morning in Spring,
I smelt the sharp scent of each young growing thing,
I smelt the sweet herbage all drowned with the dew.
And the time that's gone from me was with me anew.
All in a green thicket at break of the day
It was like the dear voice of a friend far away,
I Sat in the Sunlight
I sat in the sunlight thinking of life;
I sat there, dreaming of Death.
And a moth alit on the sun-dial's face,
And the birds sang sleepily,
And the leaves stirred,
And the sun lay warm on the hills,
And the afternoon grew old.
So, some day I knew the birds would sing,
And the leaves would stir,
And the afternoon grow old--
And I would not be there.
And the warmth went out of the day,
And a wind blew out of the West where I sat,
And the birds were still!
Homing
Sweet timber land
Where soft winds blow
The high green tree
And fan away the fog!
Ah fragrant stream
Where thirsty creatures go
And strong black men
Hew the heavy log!
Oh broken house
Crumbling there alone,
Wanting me!
Oh silent tree
Must I always be
A wild bird
Riding the wind
And screaming bitterly?
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