Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE BIRD, by THEOPHILE JULIUS HENRY MARZIALS First Line: O sweet song-bird in the sunlight winging Last Line: Sun thou art darkened -- bird thou art mute. Alternate Author Name(s): Marzials, Theo; Marzials, Theophile Jules Henri Subject(s): Birds; Love; Singing & Singers; Soul | ||||||||
O sweet song-bird in the sunlight winging, O'er crimson of poppy and yellow of wheat, The sun springs out as you songs are springing, And fain would be singing a song as sweet. Sweet, sweet singing, and soft with clover And thyme beyond number, and murmur of trees; And perfume and pollen a weft winds over, Trodden by grasshoppers, over and over, And crickets re-trilling the trills that are over, In shimmer of beetles and booming of bees. Slumbringly sweet, for the vineyards are nooning, My sweet one and I are a-weary with pruning, Of sunlight and sunning, and now for the nooning, -- Low in the vine-props, lull'd by the tuning Of wine-leaf and tendril, -- my head to her knees. O curling and creeping leaf-rustles that cover, The cooler, the closer, from noon that runs over, My love in her love in the kiss of a lover, With soft leaf-light and sun-harmonies. O sweet song-bird, in our dreams a-winging, And drifting the sun and the summer along, Till slumber is full of the sun, as thy singing Is full of the sun, or the sun of thy song; Till dream'd in our love is the husbandman, Summer, Love-sick and sighing, and thou the reed-flute; He pipes of his loving, as living gets dumber, And dumber to death, as the sunning and summer, And day-light, and music of dancing is dumber, And all but the frogs in the marshes are mute. O bird! the sun is the soul of your singing, That sings of a love you would fain be a-flinging, And seeking a solace, the blighting but bringing, -- For singing and soul are as knit, -- as the clinging Of lizard to lizard, where gnarls the vine-root. But vineyards are chill, where they shook in the summer, And summer has sunk as your singing grew dumber, And weary we wander from night the new-comer, Our souls love-o'erladen, our shoulders with fruit. Heavy with honey drones home the rose-hummer -- Sun thou art darkened -- bird thou art mute. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE CRUEL FALCON by ROBINSON JEFFERS THE WHOLE SOUL by PHILIP LEVINE I KNOW MY SOUL by CLAUDE MCKAY HONORING THE SAND; IN MEMORY OF JOSEPH CAMPBELL by ROBERT BLY THE CHINESE PEAKS; FOR DONALD HALL by ROBERT BLY THE LIFE OF TOWNS: TOWN OF THE EXHUMATION by ANNE CARSON A COURT-MINSTREL by THEOPHILE JULIUS HENRY MARZIALS |
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