A green bird on a golden bush, And the leaves chimed out and spake: "What have you seen, what heard, green bird, Since you heard the blue day break?" "A sea, a sea, a saffron sea, And a creamy warm full sail Floating beneath me as I flew, And my shadow stamped the sail Like a clover leaf, a green clover leaf, Blown from an Irish dale." "Did lovers pale stand by the sail That furroughed the Irish Sea? Did you catch the glimmer of golden mail Or the glimmer of hair blown free?" "Golden each scale of his burnished mail And her hair was bronze and gold: From an emerald cup I saw them sup That their four hands scarce could hold." "Delight and woe, delight and woe, Bird of the Irish Sea -- These they drank up from the emerald cup On the sun-swooned saffron sea." "Only delight, only delight, While the beautiful burning blue daylight Was dappled by me With the green leaf-shadow shapen in three. Delight I saw, delight I heard!" Sang the sunlight-aureoled emerald bird To the golden tree Deliriously. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HOUSES OF DREAMS by SARA TEASDALE THE MASTER'S TOUCH by HORATIO (HORATIUS) BONAR LOVE by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE HOW THE CUMBERLAND WENT DOWN [MARCH 8, 1862] by SILAS WEIR MITCHELL MACGREGOR'S GATHERING by WALTER SCOTT THE MULBERRY GARDEN: CHILD AND MAIDEN by CHARLES SEDLEY STELLA'S BIRTHDAY, 1720 by JONATHAN SWIFT |