A hundred thousand birds salute the day: -- One solitary bird salutes the night: Its mellow grieving wiles our grief away, And tunes our weary watches to delight; It seems to sing the thoughts we cannot say, To know and sing them, and to set them right; Until we feel once more that May is May, And hope some buds may bloom without a blight. This solitary bird outweighs, outvies, The hundred thousand merry-making birds Whose innocent warblings yet might make us wise Would we but follow when they bid us rise, Would we but set their notes of praise to words And launch our hearts up with them to the skies. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BATTLE OF THE BALTIC by THOMAS CAMPBELL TO RUSSIA by CINCINNATUS HEINE MILLER ASTROPHEL AND STELLA: 72 by PHILIP SIDNEY LINES ON THE MONUMENT OF GIUSEPPE MAZZINI by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE THE POET'S SONG by ALFRED TENNYSON LOST AT SEA by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH ON THE DEATH OF A DAUGHTER by RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM TO JOANNA, ON SENDING ME THE LEAF OF A FLOWER ... WORDSWORTH'S GARDEN by BERNARD BARTON |