Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE HERMIT THRUSH by AGNES KENDRICK GRAY

First Line: ONLY THROUGH GRACE OF KEATS HAVE I YET HEARD
Last Line: IN THAT SONG-SHAKEN AIR!
Subject(s): BIRDS; THRUSHES;
THE HERMIT THRUSH

Only through grace of Keats have I yet heard
The nightingale in gardens by the sea;
Only in Shelley's echo caught the note
Of sunlight from the skylark's throat
Poured over vineyard hills of Italy!

But once with senses quickened into pain,
I heard in summer dusk of fir and pine—
Among Sierran heights made holy ground—
The hermit thrush, a forest Israfel,
Flood all the mountain round
With music half of earth and half divine.

I needed then no nightingale to tell
His sorrow to the hidden ear of night—
No lark to be the herald of the light.
For in that song were summed all golden birds,
All poets' golden words...
All love and pain, all passion and all prayer
Were gathered there
On that Sierran height,
In that song-shaken air!



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