John Banister Tabb [1845-1909]

JOY-MONTH

Oh, hark to the brown thrush! hear how he sings!

How he pours the dear pain of his gladness!

What a gush! and from out what golden springs!

What a rage of how sweet madness!

And golden the b.u.t.tercup blooms by the way, A song of the joyous ground; While the melody rained from yonder spray Is a blossom in fields of sound.

How glisten the eyes of the happy leaves!

How whispers each blade, "I am blest!"

Rosy Heaven his lips to flowered earth gives, With the costliest bliss of his breast.

Pour, pour of the wine of thy heart, O Nature!

By cups of field and of sky, By the br.i.m.m.i.n.g soul of every creature!-- Joy-mad, dear Mother, am I.

Tongues, tongues for my joy, for my joy! more tongues!-- Oh, thanks to the thrush on the tree, To the sky, and to all earth's blooms and songs!

They utter the heart in me.

David Atwood Wa.s.son [1823-1887]

MY THRUSH

All through the sultry hours of June, From morning blithe to golden noon, And till the star of evening climbs The gray-blue East, a world too soon, There sings a Thrush amid the limes.

G.o.d's poet, hid in foliage green, Sings endless songs, himself unseen; Right seldom come his silent times.

Linger, ye summer hours serene!

Sing on, dear Thrush, amid the limes!

Nor from these confines wander out, Where the old gun, bucolic lout, Commits all day his murderous crimes: Though cherries ripe are sweet, no doubt, Sweeter thy song amid the limes.

May I not dream G.o.d sends thee there, Thou mellow angel of the air, Even to rebuke my earthlier rhymes With music's soul, all praise and prayer?

Is that thy lesson in the limes?

Closer to G.o.d art thou than I: His minstrel thou, whose brown wings fly Through silent ether's summer climes.

Ah, never may thy music die!

Sing on, dear Thrush, amid the limes!

Mortimer Collins [1827-1876]

"BLOW SOFTLY, THRUSH"

Blow softly, thrush, upon the hush That makes the least leaf loud, Blow, wild of heart, remote, apart From all the vocal crowd, Apart, remote, a spirit note That dances meltingly afloat, Blow faintly, thrush!

And build the green-hid waterfall I hated for its beauty, and all The unloved vernal rapture and flush, The old forgotten lonely time, Delicate thrush!

Spring's at the prime, the world's in chime, And my love is listening nearly; O lightly blow the ancient woe, Flute of the wood, blow clearly!

Blow, she is here, and the world all dear, Melting flute of the hush, Old sorrow estranged, enriched, sea-changed, Breathe it, veery thrush!

Joseph Russell Taylor [1868-1933]

THE BLACK VULTURE

Aloof within the day's enormous dome, He holds unshared the silence of the sky.

Far down his bleak, relentless eyes descry The eagle's empire and the falcon's home-- Far down, the galleons of sunset roam; His hazards on the sea of morning lie; Serene, he hears the broken tempest sigh Where cold sierras gleam like scattered foam.

And least of all he holds the human swarm-- Unwitting now that envious men prepare To make their dream and its fulfillment one When, poised above the caldrons of the storm, Their hearts, contemptuous of death, shall dare His roads between the thunder and the sun.

George Sterling [1869-1926]

WILD GEESE

How oft against the sunset sky or moon I watched that moving zigzag of spread wings In unforgotten Autumns gone too soon, In unforgotten Springs!

Creatures of desolation, far they fly Above all lands bound by the curling foam; In misty lens, wild moors and trackless sky These wild things have their home.

They know the tundra of Siberian coasts.

And tropic marshes by the Indian seas; They know the clouds and night and starry hosts From Crux to Pleiades.

Dark flying rune against the western glow-- It tells the sweep and loneliness of things, Symbol of Autumns vanished long ago.

Symbol of coming Springs!

Frederick Peterson [1859-

TO A WATERFOWL

Whither, midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, Or where the rocking billows rise and sink On the chafed ocean-side?

There is a Power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,-- The desert and illimitable air,-- Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, Though the dark night is near.