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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE SONG-SPARROW, by PERCY MACKAYE Poet's Biography
First Line: When june was cool and clover long
Last Line: Still make a subterfuge of song!
Alternate Author Name(s): Mackaye, Percy Wallace
Variant Title(s): The Song Sparrow
Subject(s): Birds; Gulls; Seagulls
First Line: When june was cool and clover long
Last Line: Still make a subterfuge of song!
Alternate Author Name(s): Mackaye, Percy Wallace
Variant Title(s): The Song Sparrow
Subject(s): Birds; Gulls; Seagulls
WHEN June was cool and clover long
And birds were glad in soul and body,
I sat me down to make a song,
And sweltered in my study:
I swinked and sweat with weary art
To tell how merry was my heart.
With weary art and wordy choice
I toiled, when sudden — low and breezy —
I heard a little friendly voice
Call: Simple, simple, so easy!
I heard, yet sat apart in dole
To sing how social was my soul.
In vain! — That artless voice went round
In tiny echoes faint and teasy.
I rose: "What toil then, have you found
Simple, simple, so easy?"
Dauntless, the bird, with dewy beak,
Carolled again his cool critique.
Nay, song it is a simple thing
For hearts that seek no reason:
Relentless bird, why should you sing
Who are the happy season? —
Still why! The root of joy I seek,
While laughter ripples from your beak.
No wonder, then, the bard's pen creaks,
The critic's drone grows wheezy,
When joy the June bird never seeks
Is simple, simple, so easy!
While we, who find our art so long,
Still make a subterfuge of song!
Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!
Other Poems of Interest...
JUST AS MORNING TWILIGHT AND THE GULLS, GLOUCESTER, MAY 1966 by CHARLES OLSON
A POEM BY GARNIE BRAXTON by JAMES WRIGHT
GULLS by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
A GULL GOES UP by LEONIE ADAMS
UNDER THE WHARF by IDA COLE BARTLATT
THE SEAGULL by HERBERT BASHFORD
A CHILD AT THE WICKET by PERCY MACKAYE