Classic Poem

Bare above the hedge, already
Thick with leaf, the leafless ash
Stands, resisting still the heady
Spring's excited sudden flash;
Like a deep reluctant lover
Whose still heart is slow to love,
But the more it takes to move her,
When she loves the more she'll … Hush!
Coloured like his branchy cover,
Ash-eye speckled sits a thrush.
Lack of shelter little daunts him:
If the branches lack their green,
All the better may the mountains
Through the leafless boughs be seen.
You may count up five, or count tens
In between his fangled notes,
While the evening smooths the mountains
And on silence music floats:
Sweetly sudden knots in silence
Like the way a violet shows,
Interrupting green with sweetness.
Presently its purple glows
Like a drop of nectar taken
From the cup that Hebe spilt;
Dew fallen down from Ida, shaken
When great Hera kicked the quilt.
Lightly from the boughs ungreening
Floats the light and lyric cheer,
Just a voice that takes a meaning
From the place and those that hear.
And the silence feeds his whistling
As the evening lights the stars,
Or my ear my fancy, listening
To his interrupted bars.
O my fancy stop your straining
After subtile simile;
Listen to the curled flakes raining
From the song-bird in his tree;
Cease to taint with mortal dreaming
Such a liquid lovely song;
Now the evening air is creaming,
And the hills are smooth and long!
Like the mountains which the Magi
Seek beyond the starlit road
When the Tuscan mixes magic
On the painted oaken board,
And you see smooth light pervade all
Trees transfigured, leaves unstirred,
And the mountains to a cradle
Dwindle, cradling the Word.
Here the ash tree with a trellis
Of its young boughs yet unblurred
Screens the golden dusty valleys
Stilled to hear the singing bird.
Music: silence: silence aching,
Till the few notes twisted clear,
Lovely thoughtless music making,
Lancinate the inmost ear;
Exquisitely thin and sweeter
Than the high sharp sickle moon,
Perfect, being incompleter
Than a promise past and blown,
Sounds that cease before enticing
Thoughts and fetters of the word;
Here is Sound for Song sufficing,
Leafless ash and singing bird.