THE GREY BIRD
The wind blows
Heavy with spice.
Among macaws and birds of paradise
With plumage grey he goes.
Silence hangs like a cloud;
Yet lives innumerable teem.
The wild eyes of the crowd
Of watching creatures with a sullen gleam
The forest haunt.
The birds flaunt
Their vivid hues, and scream,
Yet leave the smothering silence still supreme.
And the bird with the grey wing
Unnoticed flies. No finery or glow
Has he to show,
Nor in this land unhallowed will he sing.
But in the tropic heat,
When March is ablaze,
Strange instincts beat
In his breast.
He is full of amaze,
He suffers a sweet unrest,
And though
Unheeded still he flutter to and fro,
Yet in foreknowledge of a gentle Spring
He turns and fondles oft in his warm throat
The pure, the lovely note
He soon shall sing—
When, in a land of the West,
In England, over the foam,
After long voyage his tired wings come to rest
And his glad heart finds home.
Then hark how he shall spill
His liquid miracle,
Hark to the thrill
Of the secret song,
The gay tune hid so long!
See on a twig scarce bent,
Mid leafage cool
Of oak or birch
Or willow-fringe about a reedy pool,
How he shall choose his perch
And make wild music out of souls content.
How he shall love!
How he shall sing!
How he shall rove
With a careless wing!
How in this Isle
Of Splendid Voice,
Home from exile
He shall rejoice!
How his golden song shall be spent
Forgetting the foul, fierce continent!