THE LOST BIRD by EDWARD ROWLAND SILL

WHAT cared she for the free hearts? She would comfort
The prisoned one:
What recked I of the wanton other singers?
She sang for me alone --
Was all my own, my own!

But when they loaded me with heavier fetters,
And chained I lay,
How could she know I longed to reach her window?
Athirst the livelong day,
At eve she fled away.

Still stands her cage wide open at the casement,
In sun and rain,
Though years have gone, and rust has thickly gathered, --
My watching all in vain;
She will not come again.

Against its wires I strum with idle fingers
From morn to noon;
I swing the door with loitering touch, and listen
To hear that old-time tune,
Sweet as the soul of June.

My bird, my silver voice that cheered my prison,
Hushed, lost to me:
And still I wait for death, in chains, forsaken,
(Soon may the summons be!)
But she is free.
-- "Is free?"

Nay, in the palace porches caught and hanging,
Who says 't is gay,
The song the false prince hears? who says her singing,
From day to summer day,
Grieves not her heart away?

But when my dream comes true in that last sleeping,
And death makes free,
Against the blue shall snowy wings come sweeping,
My bird flown back to me,
Mine for eternity!

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