TANAGER
Scarlet bird!
Whence have you fluttered into my green gloom,
My sleepy solitude, on quiet wing,
Your voice unheard?
Why do you linger there upon the tree.
And still forbear to sing,
As if your message were a silent doom?
O torch of fire;
Enkindled at the flame of heart’s desire.
In some enchanted land! O wingèd rose.
Blown from the living garden of delight!
O flash of joy
Deliriously bright.
Escaping from the heart of some fierce boy,
Or girl who thrills and glows!
O dream incarnadine
Out of the jeweled past; red rapture that was mine!
Why sent to torture me?
You cut the shadow like an open wound;
The forest bleeds with your intensity,
In a mysterious anguish unrelieved by sound.
And when you flit away,
Back to your radiant realm, your vivid day,
And shivering I shall gaze
Down the dim alley empty of your blaze,
The darkness will be darker evermore,
The silence stiller than it was before.
Then faded peace will brood—
A moment stirred
In the transfigured wood,
O scarlet bird!