Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AUGURY, by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AUGURY, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: What sweeter sight will ever charm the eye
Last Line: Could steal one mothering wing for folly's bait?
Alternate Author Name(s): Blunden, Edmund
Subject(s): Birds; England; Landscape; Spring; English


WHAT sweeter sight will ever charm the eye
Than robin come to claim his largess old,
And pinnacled against the eager sky
Daring the armies of the brazen cold?
And wren a-running, while the storm shrouds all
The swinging mill-sails and black ghosts of groves,
Among the weeds that shake beneath the wall --
She well may vie with him in all our loves.

The mystery of the dark birthday of spring
Ever to childhood flowered into a sign
As over me I saw the paired swans wing
In whose wild breasts the gods made the light shine;
And song and wing have measured year on year,
Recorders of my solitude, till the sun
Is the bright hymn of nations of the air,
And evening and the dream-like owl are one.

So copses green start out of time stol'n hence
Because they rang with nightingales above
Their fellows, so returns dear innocence
At recollection of the lulling dove.
For alms the redbreast comes, the wren dares run,
While rook and magpie saunter through the sky,
All with their kinship of the morning sun --
In what rare element they sing and fly!

But oh, how bitter burns these fair ones' pain
When satyr hands in cages shut their young,
The old ones coming with their food in vain
Till death's a mercy! Oh, how great the wrong
That shuts 'em in, that starves but one small owl
Snatched into glaring day and mocks his hate:
And who, the wonder is, but djinn and ghoul
Could steal one mothering wing for folly's bait?





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