AT Nine Rivers, in the tenth year, in winter, -- heavy snow; The river-water covered with ice and the forests broken with their load. The birds of the air, hungry and cold, went flying east and west; And with them flew a migrant "yen," loudly clamouring for food. Among the snow it pecked for grass; and rested on the surface of the ice: It tried with its wings to scale the sky; but its tired flight was slow. The boys of the river spread a net and caught the bird as it flew; They took it in their hands to the city-market and sold it there alive. I that was once a man of the North am now an exile here: Bird and man, in their different kind, are each strangers in the south. And because the sight of an exiled bird wounded an exile's heart, I paid your ransom and set you free, and you flew away to the clouds. Yen, Yen, flying to the clouds, tell me, whither shall you go? Of all things I bid you, do not fly to the land of the northwest; In Huai-hsi there are rebel bands that have not been subdued; And a thousand thousand armoured men have long been camped in war. The official army and the rebel army have grown old in their opposite trenches; The soldier's rations have grown so small, they'll be glad of even you. The brave boys, in their hungry plight, will shoot you and eat your flesh; They will pluck from your body those long feathers and make them into arrow-wings! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AN ORDER FOR A PICTURE by ALICE CARY ON SIR PALMES FAIRBORNE'S TOMB, IN WESTERMINSTER ABBEY by JOHN DRYDEN A LITTLE CHILD'S HYMN; FOR NIGHT AND MORNING by FRANCIS TURNER PALGRAVE GEORGE CRABBE by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON SONNET UPON HISTORIE OF GEORGE CASTRIOT, ALIAS SCANDERBERG by EDMUND SPENSER ON AN ANNIVERSARY by JOHN MILLINGTON SYNGE |