I am a bird in a shell, Busy by night and by day In decking and fashioning well The spherical home where I stay. With the warm red blood of my heart I paint the enveloping white In forms of luxuriant art, In symbols of grace and delight. This is the world and the all, This that enwraps me around, This warm, symmetrical ball Without beginning or bound. Strange are the voices that come My peaceful contentment to mar; For the spaces beyond it are dumb, If spaces beyond it there are. Strange are the forces that stir This orbic mansion and me, For we are all things that ever were, And all that ever can be. And so I do wisely and well, Adorning by night and by day This perfect and permanent shell, -- My dwelling forever and aye. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ASTROPHEL AND STELLA: 110 by PHILIP SIDNEY THE CHARWOMAN by GEORGE LAWRENCE ANDREWS A SOCIETY MARTYR by JOHN CLINTON ANTHONY DELAY by CHARLOTTE FISKE BATES COUPLETS IN PRAISE by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT THE MILLENNNIUM (APOLOGIES AS USUAL) by BERTON BRALEY THE MOTHER'S HYMN by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT ON BEING SHEWN A BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY SEAT by ROBERT BURNS WORK AND WORSHIP; A LEGEND OF THE DANUBE by WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER |