Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE FIRST MOCKING-BIRD IN SPRING, by PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Winged poet of vernal ethers! Last Line: Find voice in thy bountiful strains to-day! Subject(s): Mockingbirds | ||||||||
WINGED poet of vernal ethers! Ah! where hast thou lingered long? I have missed thy passionate, skyward flights And the trills of thy changeful song. Hast thou been in the hearts of woodlands old, Half dreaming, and, drowsed by the winter's cold, Just crooning the ghost of thy springtide lay To the listless shadows, benumbed and gray? Or hast thou strayed by a tropic shore, And lavished, O sylvan troubadour! The boundless wealth of thy music free On the dimpling waves of the Southland sea? What matter? Thou comest with magic strain, To the morning haunts of thy life again, And thy melodies fall in a rhythmic rain. The wren and the field-lark listen To the gush from their laureate's throat; And the blue-bird stops on the oak to catch Each rounded and perfect note. The sparrow, his pert head reared aloft, Has ceased to chirp in the grassy croft, And is bending the curves of his tiny ear In the pose of a critic wise, to hear. A blackbird, perched on a glistening gum, Seems lost in a rapture, deep and dumb; And as eagerly still in his tranced hush, 'Mid the copse beneath, is a clear-eyed thrush. No longer the dove by the thorn-tree root Moans sad and soft as a far-off flute. All Nature is hearkening, charmed and mute. We scarce can deem it a marvel, For the songs our nightingale sings Throb warm and sweet with the rhythmic beat Of the fervors of countless springs. All beautiful measures of sky and earth Outpour in a second and rarer birth From that mellow throat. When the winds are whist, And he follows his mate to their sunset tryst, Where the wedded myrtles and jasmine twine, Oh! the swell of his music is half divine! And I vaguely wonder, O bird! can it be That a human spirit hath part in thee? Some Lesbian singer's, who died perchance Too soon in the summer of Greek romance, But the rich reserves of whose broken lay, In some mystical, wild, undreamed-of way, Find voice in thy bountiful strains to-day! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO OUR MOCKING-BIRD; DIED OF A CAT, MAY, 1878 by SIDNEY LANIER MOCKING BIRDS by KENNETH REXROTH MOCKINGBIRD MONTH by MONA VAN DUYN PATRIOTIC TOUR AND POSTULATE OF JOY by ROBERT PENN WARREN THE MOCKING BIRD by SIDNEY LANIER THE MOCKING-BIRD by FRANK LEBBY STANTON TO THE MOCKINGBIRD by RICHARD HENRY WILDE A STORM IN THE DISTANCE (AMONG THE GEORGIAN HILLS) by PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE |
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