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 winged 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! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE THREE LITTLE KITTENS (A CAT'S TALE, WITH ADDITIONS) by ELIZA LEE CABOT FOLLEN HASTE NOT! REST NOT! by JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE EPITAPH FOR SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, AT ST. PAUL'S WITHOUT A MONUMENT ... by EDWARD HERBERT TO THE RIGHT HON! WILLIAM EARL OF DARTMOUTH by PHILLIS WHEATLEY SONG OF YOUTH by LULU PIPER AIKEN A POEM OF SPRING by JOHANNA AMBROSIUS THE IMPROVISATORE: THE INDUCTION TO THE SECOND FYTTE by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES |