Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LOVE-LORN, by MARGARET ELIZABETH MUNSON SANGSTER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LOVE-LORN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: In her cage by my window swings a bird
Last Line: The strain of the singer, her mate, that died.
Alternate Author Name(s): Van Deth, Gerrit, Mrs.
Subject(s): Death; Grief; Hearts; Love - Loss Of; Dead, The; Sorrow; Sadness


IN her cage by my window swings a bird,
A beautiful bird with golden wing,
And all day long, by a memory stirred,
In a faint little treble she tries to sing.

I list to the twitter, so soft and low,
To the quavering trill that breaks in twain;
The silver song she recalls, I know,—
The song she tries to repeat in vain.

In April days of the budding leaves
A mate was hers, with a tuneful breast;
But the summer long, to the time of sheaves,
She was all alone in the tiny nest.

And in and out, through the peace profound
Of the silent, slumberous, summer noon,—
A tremulous, touching, pathetic sound,—
She wove the thought of a transient tune.

The jar-fly broke with his cadenced whir,
A comma of sound in a silent space;
The south wind moved with a gentle stir
Through the shadowy leaves of his hiding place,

The lilies stood in their vestal robes,
White as a nun's, by the garden gate;
And, light as a feather-puff, the globes
Of the thistle rose at the waft of fate.

Still feebly rippled across the air
The low love-note of a vanished song,—
The moan of a hopeless, desolate prayer,—
Till the days grew short and the nights grew long.

"O Bird, my Bird, you never were meant
To warble songs for the world to hear!
You were made for the stillness of shy content,
And the quiet round of a homely sphere;

"For the patient waiting of brooding days,
And the overflood of a mother's heart;
For tender pride in the winning ways
Of your wee ones dear, from the world apart.

"And why, in a rôle that is not yours
Do you strive to act, with a lonely pain?
Forget the grief that your heart endures;
Begin once more to be glad again."

But nothing my Bird hath answered me;
Only again and again hath tried
The sweet, sad song or the song of glee—
The strain of the singer, her mate, that died.





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