Classic Poem

Thrush , across the twilight
Here in the abbey close,
Pouring from your lilac-bough
Note on pebbled note,
Why do you sing so,
Making your song so bright,
Swelling to a throbbing curve
That brave little throat?

Soon, but a season brief,
The lice among your feathers,
Stiff-winged and aimless-eyed,
With song dead you shall fall;
Refuse of some clotted ditch,
Seeking no more berries,—
Why with lyric numbers now
Do you the twilight call?

Proud in your tawny plumes
Mottled in devising,
Singing as though never sang
Bird in close till now—
Sharp are the javelins
Of death that are seeking,
Seeking even simple birds
On a lilac-bough.

Crushed, forlorn, a frozen thing,
For no more nesting,
For no more speckled eggs
In pattered cup of clay,
Soon your song shall come to this,
You who make the twilight yours,
And echoes of the abbey,
At the end of day.

In the song I hear it,
The thud of a poor feathered death,
In the swelling throat I see
The splintering of song—
What demon then has worked in me
To tease my brain to bitterness—
In me who have loved bird and tree
So long, so long?

Until I come to charity,
Until I find peace again,
My curse upon the fiend or god
That will not let me hear
A bird in song upon the bough,
But, hovering about the notes,
There chimes the maniac beating
Of black-winged fear.