Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE GREEN BIRD SEETH ISEULT, by WILLIAM ALEXANDER PERCY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE GREEN BIRD SEETH ISEULT, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: A green bird on a golden bush
Last Line: Deliriously.
Subject(s): Birds


A green bird on a golden bush,
And the leaves chimed out and spake:
"What have you seen, what heard, green bird,
Since you heard the blue day break?"

"A sea, a sea, a saffron sea,
And a creamy warm full sail
Floating beneath me as I flew,
And my shadow stamped the sail
Like a clover leaf, a green clover leaf,
Blown from an Irish dale."

"Did lovers pale stand by the sail
That furroughed the Irish Sea?
Did you catch the glimmer of golden mail
Or the glimmer of hair blown free?"

"Golden each scale of his burnished mail
And her hair was bronze and gold:
From an emerald cup I saw them sup
That their four hands scarce could hold."

"Delight and woe, delight and woe,
Bird of the Irish Sea --
These they drank up from the emerald cup
On the sun-swooned saffron sea."

"Only delight, only delight,
While the beautiful burning blue daylight
Was dappled by me
With the green leaf-shadow shapen in three.
Delight I saw, delight I heard!"
Sang the sunlight-aureoled emerald bird
To the golden tree
Deliriously.





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