Classic Poem

The wild bird 'bode in the tame bird's tether,
The stray white bird with the broken wing,
And the quick, bright eyes like a hunted thing—
'Twas here, where the roofs crowd close together,
He came one day in a stormy Spring.

Flung by a freak of the west wind hither,
'Tis well, said we, with our vagrant guest,
The white wild bird in the tame bird's nest,
No more the sport of the whence and whither,
But calm kind fortunes of ease and rest.

Here in the fine town fenced and tended,
Sheltered and safe from day to day,
Went never a wandering thought astray?
Did he dream, perchance, of the old life ended,
The wide world's joy and the wide world's way?

The low sun's fire and the long low shadows
On outland valleys; and oh, once more
Thunder of surf on the sounding shore,
The grey sea-marshes, the wide sea-meadows,
Wind-bent boughs of the sycamore?

The wild bird came and the wild bird tarried,
In a green courtyard guarded well—
The first buds broke and the last leaves fell—
What was the summons the storm-wind carried,
And what the sign of the broken spell?

Oh, the word of the wind and the winged white weather!
The swift shrill call of the whirling blast,
And the bond is snapped and the sojourn past—
At the sight, at the touch of a white snow-feather
The wanderer's child goes free at last.