Part 17

THE CAGED THRUSH FREED AND HOME AGAIN (VILLANELLE)

“MEN know but little more than we, Who count us least of things terrene, How happy days are made to be!

“Of such strange tidings what think ye, O birds in brown that peck and preen? Men know but little more than we!

“When I was borne from yonder tree In bonds to them, I hoped to glean How happy days are made to be,

“And want and wailing turned to glee; Alas, despite their mighty mien Men know but little more than we!

“They cannot change the Frost’s decree, They cannot keep the skies serene; How happy days are made to be

“Eludes great Man’s sagacity No less than ours, O tribes in treen! Men know but little more than we How happy days are made to be.”

BIRDS AT WINTER NIGHTFALL (TRIOLET)

AROUND the house the flakes fly faster, And all the berries now are gone From holly and cotoneaster Around the house. The flakes fly!—faster Shutting indoors that crumb-outcaster We used to see upon the lawn Around the house. The flakes fly faster, And all the berries now are gone!

MAX GATE.

THE PUZZLED GAME-BIRDS (TRIOLET)

THEY are not those who used to feed us When we were young—they cannot be— These shapes that now bereave and bleed us? They are not those who used to feed us,— For would they not fair terms concede us? —If hearts can house such treachery They are not those who used to feed us When we were young—they cannot be!

WINTER IN DURNOVER FIELD

SCENE.—A wide stretch of fallow ground recently sown with wheat, and frozen to iron hardness. Three large birds walking about thereon, and wistfully eyeing the surface. Wind keen from north-east: sky a dull grey.

(TRIOLET)

Rook.—Throughout the field I find no grain; The cruel frost encrusts the cornland! Starling.—Aye: patient pecking now is vain Throughout the field, I find . . . Rook.—No grain! Pigeon.—Nor will be, comrade, till it rain, Or genial thawings loose the lorn land Throughout the field. Rook.—I find no grain: The cruel frost encrusts the cornland!

THE LAST CHRYSANTHEMUM

WHY should this flower delay so long To show its tremulous plumes? Now is the time of plaintive robin-song, When flowers are in their tombs.

Through the slow summer, when the sun Called to each frond and whorl That all he could for flowers was being done, Why did it not uncurl?

It must have felt that fervid call Although it took no heed, Waking but now, when leaves like corpses fall, And saps all retrocede.

Too late its beauty, lonely thing, The season’s shine is spent, Nothing remains for it but shivering In tempests turbulent.

Had it a reason for delay, Dreaming in witlessness That for a bloom so delicately gay Winter would stay its stress?

—I talk as if the thing were born With sense to work its mind; Yet it is but one mask of many worn By the Great Face behind.

THE DARKLING THRUSH

I LEANT upon a coppice gate When Frost was spectre-gray, And Winter’s dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day. The tangled bine-stems scored the sky Like strings from broken lyres, And all mankind that haunted nigh Had sought their household fires.

The land’s sharp features seemed to be The Century’s corpse outleant, His crypt the cloudy canopy, The wind his death-lament. The ancient pulse of germ and birth Was shrunken hard and dry, And every spirit upon earth Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice outburst among The bleak twigs overhead In a full-hearted evensong Of joy illimited; An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, In blast-beruffled plume, Had chosen thus to fling his soul Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carollings Of such ecstatic sound Was written on terrestrial things Afar or nigh around, That I could think there trembled through His happy good-night air Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew And I was unaware.